WITCHCRAFT 


AND 


QUAKERISM 


tv 


AMELIA  MOl  T  GUM  MERE 


BF 

1571 

•G9 

1908 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2018  with  funding  from 
Duke  University  Libraries 


https://archive.org/details/witchcraftquaker01gumm 


Witchcraft  and  Quakerism 


GEORGE  FOX  AND  THE  WITCHES 
After  the  etching  by  Robert  Spence,  owner 
of  the  original  manuscript  Journal  of  George 
Fox,  and  by  courtesy  of  the  Artist. 


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IMS '  ■  ■■■  ■'  ;f!  i  t)il 

'!  VO.-.-!  1  i  ’  li  •  . 

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WITCHCRAFT 
and  QUAKERISM 

A  STUDY  IN  SOCIAL  HISTORY 


By  AMELIA  MOTT  GUMMERE 

Author  of 

“The  Quaker:  A  Study  in  Costume.’* 


PHILADELPHIA 

THE  BIDDLE  PRESS 


LONDON 

HEADLEY  BROS. 


Copyright  1908 
by 

THE  BIDDLE  PRESS 


PREFACE. 


\  A 

i  Z/  *  M 


It  is  a  curious  fact  of  history  that  periods  occur  in 
which  the  human  race  returns  to  some  phase  of 
thought  long  since  supposed  to  be  outgrown.  The 
present  extraordinary  reappearance  of  belief  in  super¬ 
stitions,  mystic  rites  and  occult  phenomena  of  a  more 
or  less  scientific  or  dignified  character,  may  well  bid 
us  halt  and  philosophize  for  a  moment  on  the  origin 
of  such  beliefs. 

In  this  connection,  the  attitude  of  the  Quakers  of 
the  seventeenth  and  early  eighteenth  centuries  toward 
the  whole  subject  of  superstitious  belief  is  extremely 
interesting,  and  shows  the  Rationalist  at  his  best. 

If  the  following  pages  serve  to  call  attention  to  the 
sanity  of  an  entire  community  on  a  subject  upon  which 
most  people  had  fallen  in  with  current  thought  to  a 
dangerous  degree,  the  purpose  of  the  writer  will  be 
accomplished. 

Haverford,  1908. 


A.  M.  G. 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS. 


I. 

S  Superstition  in  England  and  America  in  the  Seven¬ 
teenth  Century . page  5 


II. 

The  Camisards — George  Fox  and  Witchcraft,  .page  15 

III. 

Anti-Quaker  Publications  in  connection  with  Witch¬ 
craft  . page  27 


IV. 


vC 


State  and  Quaker  Laws  against  Witchcraft  and 
Sorcery . page  36 


V. 

Minutes  of  Pennsylvania  Meetings  against  Witch¬ 
craft  . page  48 


VI. 


Whittier’s  Attitude  toward  the  Subject — Dreams  and 
Visions . page  62 


WITCHCRAFT  AND  QUAKERISM. 

I. 

“There  in  a  gloomy  hollow  Glen  she  found 
A  little  cottage  built  of  Sticks  and  Reeds 
In  homely  wise  and  walled  with  Sods  around 
In  which  a  Witch  did  dwell,  in  loathly  Weedes, 

And  wilful  Want,  all  careless  of  her  Needes 
So  choosing  Solitarie  to  abide, 

Far  from  all  Neighbours,  that  her  devilish  Deedes 
And  hellish  Arts  from  People  she  might  hide 
And  hurt  far  off  unknown,  whom  ever  she  enviede.” 

Spenser:  Faerie  Queen. 


N  many  respects  the  Quakers  stand 
out  conspicuously  free  from  some 
of  the  current  phases  of  thought 
prevalent  at  the  time  of  their  rise. 
Among  these  may  be  mentioned 
the  belief  in  witchcraft,  which  was 
as  common  in  the  seventeenth  century  as  is  ours 
to-day  in  medicine  or  electricity.  Moreover,  the 


[5] 


WITCHCRAFT  AND  QUAKERISM 


English  people  were  in  a  period  of  great  spiritual 
turmoil,  and  were  keyed  up  to  a  state  of  nervous 
irritability  which  responded  to  the  first  summons. 
Such  conditions  are  familiar  to  all  students  of  his¬ 
tory. 

Periods  of  religious  excitement  followed  the 
preaching  of  the  Franciscan  Friars  in  Italy,  that 
of  Luther  in  Germany,  and  of  John  Cotton  and 
the  Mathers  in  New  England.  The  Quakers  them¬ 
selves,  under  certain  conditions,  were  not  free  from 
a  similar  tendency,  while  a  more  aggravated  form 
was  found  among  the  disciples  of  John  Wesley. 
The  phenomenon  is  not  unfamiliar  to-day  in  rural 
neighborhoods.  The  great  mass  of  the  yeoman  and 
middle  class  from  which  the  Quakers  chiefly  came, 
possessed  a  social  atmosphere  of  haziness  and 
uncertainty,  lent  by  their  limited  relations  to  the 
world  at  large.  Many  of  the  men  whose  names 
are  familiar  to  us  in  the  early  history  of  Quaker¬ 
ism  were  either  by  education  or  social  position,  or 
from  other  causes,  superior  to  the  class  of  people 
who  constituted  the  main  body  of  Fox’s  followers. 
With  these  latter,  critical  ignorance  often  made  a 
medium,  vague  and  distorted,  through  which,  to 
the  Quaker  mystic,  men  were  as  trees  walking.  It 
was  a  time  when  many  lived  upon  the  border-land 
of  insanity.  If  it  was  possible  for  an  intelligent 


[6] 


THE  UNFAMILIAR  BIBLE 


and  highly  educated  man  like  John  Evelyn  to  see 
in  the  passage  of  a  comet  across  the  heavens  some¬ 
thing  terrifying  and  portentous,  it  is  little  wonder 
that  the  uneducated  of  his  day  spent  their  lives 
in  superstition.  There  was  neither  political  nor 
religious  peace,  and  education  was  not  a  common 
blessing.  Miracles  were  declared  perfectly  pos¬ 
sible.  The  Baptists  were  healing  by  anointing  with 
oil,  and  the  King  was  “touching”  for  scrofula,  or 
“King’s  Evil.” 

Moreover,  the  Bible  was  so  new  that  the  splen¬ 
did  imagery  of  the  Hebrew  prophets  and  the  fear¬ 
ful  pictures  of  the  Apocalypse  wrought  men’s 
minds  to  a  superhuman  pitch,  wherein  any  extraor¬ 
dinary  happening  might  be  accepted  as  possible. 
All  the  extravagance  of  which  some  of  the  early 
Quakers  were  undoubtedly  guilty,  although  offi¬ 
cially  discountenanced  by  the  sect,  were,  as  with  the 
Puritans,  the  result  of  an  over-literal  interpreta¬ 
tion  of  their  Bibles ;  for,  despite  the  Quaker  claim 
to  the  superiority  of  the  spirit  to  the  word,  as  con¬ 
tained  in  Scripture,  the  Quakers  to  a  man  were 
thoroughly  versed  in  Bible  phraseology.  So  also 
were  the  Puritans.  Winthrop’s  supreme  venera¬ 
tion  for  the  Bible  was  a  part  of  his  reverent  belief, 
not,  certainly,  any  natural  desire  to  seek  vengeance. 
How  many  modern  Quakers,  indeed,  realize  that 


[7] 


WITCHCRAFT  AND  QUAKERISM 


at  the  time  George  Fox  was  born,  in  1624,  King 
James’  version  of  the  English  Bible  had  been  in 
the  hands  of  the  common  people  but  thirteen  years? 
During  the  height  of  the  religious  excitement  among 
the  sectaries  of  the  Commonwealth,  no  hallucina¬ 
tion  was  too  far-fetched  to  be  believed,  or  to  be 
explained  upon  religious  grounds  alone. 

Such  a  man  as  Blackstone  wrote:  “To  deny  the 
possibility,  nay,  actual  existence,  of  witchcraft  and 
sorcery,  is  at  once  to  flatly  deny  the  revealed  word 
of  God.” 

Sir  Matthew  Hale,  in  1665,  charging  the  jury 
in  a  famous  witch  trial  at  Bury  St.  Edmunds,  said : 
“That  there  are  such  creatures  as  witches,  I  make 
no  doubt  at  all,  for  first,  the  Scriptures  have  af¬ 
firmed  so  much;  secondly,  the  wisdom  of  all  na¬ 
tions  hath  provided  laws  against  such  persons.” 
The  verdict  was  “guilty,”  and  the  witch  executed.1 

Every  mischance  was  spoken  of  by  the  Puritans 
as  a  “judgment  of  God”;  so  and  so  “was  a  pro¬ 
fessed  enemy  to  us,  but  he  never  prospered,”  says 
Winthrop ;  and  the  same  note  is  sounded  in  the 
journal  of  George  Fox.  A  son  of  Samuel  Shattuck, 
bearer  of  the  King’s  mandate  of  release  for  the 
Quakers  imprisoned  by  Governor  Endicott,  appears 
in  the  Salem  trials  (case  of  Bishop)  as  a  prominent 

'Campbell.  “Lives  of  the  Chief  Justices.”  I,  565. 


[8] 


WESLEY  AND  LUTHER  ON  WITCHCRAFT 


witness  against  some  of  the  unfortunates  accused 
of  witchcraft  soon  after.  Years  later,  when  all  this 
with  its  results  had  passed  into  history,  John  Wes¬ 
ley  bemoaned  the  decline  of  superstition,  the  ad¬ 
vance  of  human  thought  and  the  more  peaceable 
reign  of  Christ  on  the  earth,  in  the  following 
words :  “It  is  true  likewise,  that  the  English  in 
general,  and,  indeed,  most  of  the  men  of  learning 
in  Europe,  have  given  up  all  accounts  of  witches 
and  apparitions  as  mere  wives’  fables.  I  am  sorry 
for  it.  *  *  *  *  *  The  giving  up  of  witch¬ 

craft  is  in  effect  giving  up  the  Bible!”1  It  is  com¬ 
forting  to  know  that  his  brother  Charles  kept  a 
clearer  judgment  on  this  subject,  upon  which  they 
were  never  agreed.  The  more  enlightened  periods 
have  been  the  most  active  in  persecuting  for  witch¬ 
craft,  and  the  Reformers  were  the  strongest  of  the 
believers.  Luther  himself  wrote :  “I  should  have 
no  compassion  on  these  witches.  I  would  burn  all 
of  them.  *  *  Witchcraft  is  the  Devil’s  own 

proper  work.”  He,  therefore,  threw  after  him  his 
famous  ink-bottle !  King  Henry  VIII  seems  to 
have  been  the  only  person  in  all  the  long  list  proof 
against  such  delusions.  Oxford  heads  of  colleges 
sought  out  heretics  with  the  aid  of  astrology,  and 

‘Journal  of  John  Wesley,  1768. 

[9] 


WITCHCRAFT  AND  QUAKERISM 

many  persons  permanently  or  temporarily  went 
mad. 

A  little  later,  Sir  Thomas  Browne’s  well-known 
words  express  the  public  sentiment :  “I  have  long 
believed  and  do  now  know,  that  there  are  witches; 
they  that  doubt  them  do  not  only  deny  them,  but 
spirits,  and  are  obliquely  and  upon  consequence, 
a  sort,  not  of  infidels,  but  of  atheists.”1  Richard 
Baxter  sustained  Cotton  Mather  in  his  arguments 
in  favor  of  the  existence  of  witches  in  a  treatise 
“On  the  Certainty  of  a  World  of  Spirits”;  and  in 
America  the  height  was  reached  in  1693. 

A  year  or  two  before,  the  Puritans  at  Salem  had 
turned  upon  their  own  people  the  persecutions  they 
had  inflicted  upon  the  Quakers;  and  even  the  ex¬ 
cesses  of  those  Quakers  whose  religious  excite¬ 
ment  had  led  them  over  the  borders  of  sanity,  do 
not  furnish  a  parallel  to  those  of  the  Salem  peo¬ 
ple  themselves.  But  a  clear  line  of  demarcation 
must  be  drawn  between  the  Puritans  of  Salem  and 
all  others.  In  the  Old  Colony  there  were  but  two 
cases  tried,  witnesses  cross-examined,  the  testimony 
scanned  and  charges  found  “not  proved.”  In  this 
respect  they  are  nearly  as  clear  as  Pennsylvania, 
and  the  deeds  of  Salem  must  not  be  charged  to 
the  entire  community.  In  1669  there  was  much 

’Religio  Medici.  Ed.  1672.  p.  24. 


[10] 


THE  SALEM  WITCHCRAFT  TRIALS 


tendency  to  suicide  in  the  neighborhood,  due  to 
the  hardness  of  the  Calvinistic  doctrine,  preceding 
the  Salem  outburst.  It  is  not  true,  as  has  been  re¬ 
cently  asserted,  that  suicide  is  an  evidence  of  cul¬ 
ture.  The  Dutch  in  Manhattan  were  free  from 
witchcraft  persecutions  when  the  Quakers  first 
went  there,  and  the  sensible  Hollanders  laughed  at 
the  credulity.  This  was  also  the  attitude  of  the 
Pilgrims  at  Plymouth.  The  blight  of  1665  that 
extinguished  all  hope  of  wealth  from  the  growth 
of  wheat  in  Massachusetts,  was  attributed  by  the 
common  people,  not  to  witchcraft,  but  to  the  venge¬ 
ance  of  God  for  the  execution  of  the  Quaker  mar¬ 
tyrs.  These  Quakers,  however,  were  victims  of 
Boston,  not  Plymouth,  and  the  accusations  of 
witchcraft  were  made  by  the  inhabitants  of  the 
former  town. 

It  was  impossible  in  a  community  of  the  intelli¬ 
gence  of  New  England  for  any  witchcraft  creed 
long  to  survive.  Many  more  persons  were  exe¬ 
cuted  in  a  single  county  in  England  than  was  the 
case  in  the  whole  of  America.  English  laws  in¬ 
fluenced  all  the  executions  in  New  England,  where 
broader  and  generally  superior  standards  of  liv¬ 
ing,  and  the  application  of  higher  moral  aims,  made 
such  lapses  as  that  of  the  witchcraft  persecutions 
in  Salem  the  more  conspicuous.  Professor  G.  L. 


['I] 


WITCHCRAFT  AND  QUAKERISM 


Kittredge,  in  the  Proceedings  of  the  American  An¬ 
tiquarian  Society  (Vol.  XVIII),  ably  and  success¬ 
fully  defends  the  Puritan  forefathers  at  Salem  for 
sharing  in  the  errors  of  their  time,  proving  that 
their  exceptional  quality  lay  in  the  virtue  of  a 
prompt  acknowledgment  by  judge  and  jury  of  their 
mistaken  course,  rather  than  in  the  crime  of  con¬ 
demning  twenty-eight  persons  to  death  for  a  cause, 
which,  in  England  and  on  the  continent  of  Europe, 
was  responsible  for  the  death  of  thousands.1 

Mr.  Lecky  tells  us  that  the  most  free  from  the 
spirit  of  persecution  on  this  question  at  all  times 
has  been  the  Anglican  Church.  Continental  Catholi¬ 
cism  and  English  Puritanism  wielded  so  much 
more  power  than  what  is  now  the  Established 
Church,  that  it  may  have  simply  lacked  the  oppor¬ 
tunity  to  manifest  its  sentiments.  However  this 
may  be,  there  is  a  striking  contrast  in  the  modera¬ 
tion  of  the  higher  clergy  upon  this  point,  although 
exceptions  may  be  found.  All  the  vast  field  of  art 
also  shows  the  prevalence  of  superstitious  beliefs, 
as  in  the  ghastly  pictures  of  the  Dance  of  Death. 
The  study  of  alchemy,  the  horoscope,  and  earlier 
forms  of  what  later  developed  into  scientific  re¬ 
search,  show  the  first  instances  of  men  devoting 

‘In  the  original  “Old  South”  Church,  Boston,  Judge  Sewall 
made  public  confession  and  repentance  for  the  part  he  had 
taken  in  the  Salem  Witchcraft  Trials. 


[12] 


ALCHEMY  AND  THE  HOROSCOPE 


themselves  voluntarily  to  the  Devil.  The  multiply¬ 
ing  glass,  the  concave  mirror  and  the  camera  ob- 
scura,  were  new  in  the  seventeenth  century;  and  as 
the  law  against  witchcraft  remained  in  force,  ex¬ 
hibitors  of  these  curiosities  were  in  some  danger 
of  sentence  to  Bridewell,  the  pillory  or  even  the 


Thomas  Chatterton’s  Horoscope 


halter.  Modern  science  demands  of  its  votaries  a 
humble  mind.  No  scientist  has  ever  pronounced 
the  final  word  as  did  those  old  astrologers  and  al¬ 
chemists,  who,  to  their  admirers,  were  a  sort  of 
demigods  or  seers.  Mammon,  in  “The  Alchemist,” 
is  made  by  Ben  Jonson  to  say: 

“For  which  I’ll  say  unto  my  cook,  ‘There’s  gold; — 
Go  forth  and  be  a  knight.’  ” 


113] 


WITCHCRAFT  AND  QUAKERISM 


The  higher  critics,  however,  had  appeared.  So 
long  before  as  1392,  one  Walter  Brute  had  de¬ 
clared  Popish  exorcisms  absurd;  in  1577,  John 
Weir,  physician  to  the  Duke  of  Cleves,  challenged 
the  existence  of  witches,  and  declared  the  accused 
unbalanced  in  mind  and  deserving  of  pity;  in 
1585,  Reginald  Scott  wrote  his  “Discoverie  of 
Witchcraft,”  in  reply  to  which  the  “Daemonologie” 
of  King  James  was  written  in  1597.  But  Scott 
was  a  century  in  advance  of  his  age,  and  his  book 
was  publicly  burned.  Finally,  Bekker,  in  his  “Be¬ 
witched  World,”  gave  the  death-blow  to  the  super¬ 
stition. 


[14] 


II. 


T  the  period  when  the  Quakers  arose, 
alchemy  and  its  allied  arts  were  fall¬ 
ing  into  the  hands  of  quacks  and 
mountebanks;  and  witchcraft,  which 
held  its  own  much  later,  was  not  nearly 
so  conspicuous  as  it  had  been,  although  it  was  still 
sufficiently  prevalent.  Selden,  who  had  little  or  no 
belief  in  witchcraft  himself,  said,  in  justification 
of  some  harsh  proceedings  against  alleged  witches, 
“that  if  a  man  thought  that  by  turning  his  hat 
round  and  saying  ‘bos’  he  could  kill  a  man,  he 
ought  to  be  put  to  death  for  making  the  attempt.” 
So  also  Dryden :  “Though  he  cannot  strike  a  blow 
to  hurt  any,  yet  he  ought  to  be  punished  for  the 
malice  of  the  action,  as  our  witches  are  justly 
hanged,  because  they  think  themselves  to  be  such, 
and  suffer  deservedly  for  believing  they  did  mis¬ 
chief,  because  they  meant  it.”1 

’Essay  on  Dramatic  Poetry. 


[15] 


WITCHCRAFT  AND  QUAKERISM 


The  first  penal  statute  against  witchcraft  was 
enacted  in  1541,  when  Cranmer  enjoined  the  clergy 
“to  seek  for  any  that  use  charms,  sorcery,  enchant¬ 
ments,  witchcraft,  soothsaying,  or  any  like  craft 
invented  by  the  Devil.”  Under  King  James,  Parlia¬ 
ment  made  witchcraft  punishable  by  death.  The 
last  judicial  condemnation  for  witchcraft  in  Eng¬ 
land  was  in  1712,  in  Hertfordshire,  when  a  woman 
was  sentenced  to  death  for  selling  her  soul  to  the 
Devil.  A  royal  pardon  saved  her.  The  capital 
sentence  against  witchcraft  was  only  abolished  by 
George  II,  in  1736.1  In  those  seventeenth  century 
days,  it  was  necessary  to  believe  in  witches  to  be 
considered  orthodox.  The  man  who  did  not  to  a 
certain  extent  believe  in  witchcraft,  was  looked 
upon  very  much  as  the  more  advanced  advocates 
of  scientific,  or  the  “higher”  criticism,  are  now  re¬ 
garded  by  the  old-line  conservatives. 

In  1707,  the  Camisards,  or  Cevennois,  who  came 
over  to  England  in  that  year,  were  supposed  to 
be  prophets  and  work  miracles.  They  were  first 
stirred  up  by  Cavalier.  These  people  were  sub¬ 
ject  to  epileptiform  disorders.  They  were  sup¬ 
posed  to  be  inspired,  had  great  vogue,  were  dis¬ 
persed  from  France,  and  some  of  them  came  to 

*Act  9,  Cap.  5,  Geo.  II.  Ashton,  “Social  Life  in  the  Reign  of 
Queen  Anne.”  Vol.  I,  p.  122. 


[16] 


THE  CAMISARDS 


England.  They  were  commonly  known  as  “The 
French  Prophets.”  They  chiefly  preached  the  ap¬ 
proach  of  the  millennium.  Sir  Isaac  Newton  him¬ 
self  had  a  strong  attraction  to  go  and  hear  these 
“prophets,”  and  was  with  difficulty  restrained  by 
his  friends,  who  feared  that  he  might  be  affected 
by  them  as  Fatio,  the  mathematician,  had  been.1 
The  famous  George  Keith,  who  was  disowned  for 
heresy  by  the  Quakers,  published,  in  1707,  a  pamph¬ 
let  with  the  following  title:  “The  Magic  of  Quak¬ 
erism  ;  or  the  Chief  Mysteries  of  Quakerism  Laid 
Open.  To  which  are  added  a  preface  and  post¬ 
script  relating  to  the  Camisards,  in  answer  to  Mr. 
Lacy’s  preface  to  The  Cry  from  the  Desart.”2  In 
1708,  the  Quakers  of  Westminster  Monthly  Meet¬ 
ing  (Third  month  5th)  mention  in  their  records 
the  attendance  at  the  Camisards’  meetings  of  one 
of  their  own  women  preachers.  “A  paper  was 
brought  in  from  one  Mary  Willis  and  read,  where¬ 
in  she  condemned  herself  for  going  and  joining  with 
those  they  call  the  French  Protestants,  and  suffer¬ 
ing  the  agitation  spirit  to  come  upon  her.  She  is 
advised  to  forbear  imposing  her  preaching  upon 
our  public  meetings  for  worship  until  Friends  are 
better  satisfied.”3 

’Spence’s  “Anecdotes.”  p.  56. 

3By  “George  Keith,  M.  A.,  Rector  of  Edburton,  in  Sussex.” 

’Beck  and  Ball.  “History  of  London  Friends’  Meetings.” 
p.  252. 

(17] 


WITCHCRAFT  AND  QUAKERISM 


The  tests  were  very  arbitrary  as  applied  to 
witches.  Thoresby  (quoted  by  Ashton)  says  he 
went  to  see  a  witch  who  could  not  repeat  the  Lord’s 
Prayer — “a  fit  instrument  for  Satan!” 

An  account  of  the  trembling  and  excitement  of 
some  of  the  Quakers  is  given  in  an  early  tract, 
“Brief  Relation  of  the  Irreligion  of  the  Northern 
Quakers”  (London,  1653).  The  writer  adds :  “I 
heartily  believe  these  quakings  to  be  diabolical  rap¬ 
tures.”  In  reference  to  these  manifestations  of  ex¬ 
citement,  Barclay  says:1  “The  Friends  seem  to 
have  treated  them  among  themselves  very  rationally, 
and  occasionally  administered  a  cordial  or  medi¬ 
cine  of  some  kind,  and  this  is  commented  upon  in 
the  tracts  of  the  times  as  a  circumstance  of  the 
utmost  mystery  and  a  proof  of  sorcery!”  Of 
course  the  Friends  naturally  quoted  as  a  precedent 
the  facts  as  given  in  the  Bible — that  Moses 
“quaked,”  David  “roared,”  and  Jeremiah  “trem¬ 
bled.”  The  peculiar  feature  of  early  Methodist,  or 
rather  Wesleyan,  excitement,  was  quaking  and 
trembling.2  Many  manifestations  of  this  sort  were 
given  in  the  Independent  churches  also,  and  in  one, 

1R.  Barclay.  “Inner  Life  of  Religious  Societies  of  Common¬ 
wealth.”  312. 

2See  Southey’s  “Life  of  Wesley,”  I,  chap.  VII ;  and  Wesley’s 
Journal,  passim. 


[18] 


GEORGE  FOX  AND  WITCHCRAFT 


Mr.  Davies,  the  pastor,  was  charged  by  some  of 
his  brethren  of  dealing  in  “the  Black  Art!”1 

John  Bunyan  and  his  contemporary,  George 
Fox,  were  not  entirely  superior  to  the  supersti¬ 
tions  of  their  age.  The  bare  and  narrow  lives  of 
the  earlier  Friends,  excepting  the  few  of  rank  and 
station,  were  compensated  for  in  the  early  days  of 
persecution  by  a  spiritual  exaltation  that  bore  them 
safely  over  danger-points  always  open  in  a  system 
where  the  graces  of  society  and  its  intellectual 
needs  are  ignored.  When  the  tinker  and  the  cob¬ 
bler  had  become  the  two  great  preachers  of  differ¬ 
ing  creeds,  they  still  kept  unquestioned  their  belief 
in  the  existence  of  occult  powers,  although  they, 
with  most  educated  people,  held  to  it  with  less 
earnestness  than  before.  Fox  has  always  been  rep¬ 
resented  by  his  followers  with  too  little  of  the  hu¬ 
man  side,  while  his  critics  have  treated  him  un¬ 
fairly,  from  the  beginning.  His  own  journal, 
which  is  the  authority  for  every  statement  here 
made,  has  never  been  given  to  the  public  unabridged 
and  complete,  with  all  its  innocent  errors  upon  its 
head.2  Fox’s  character  has  nothing  to  lose  in  the 
open  glare  of  sharpest  criticism.  The  human  touch 

'Hist.  Independent  Church  at  Rothwell.  By  N.  Glass,  pp. 
85-87. 

’Since  the  above  was  written,  notice  has  been  received  of  the 
forthcoming  authorized  edition  of  Fox’s  Journal,  unabridged 
and  annotated. 

119] 


WITCHCRAFT  AND  QUAKERISM 


which  our  picture  of  him  lacks  is  given  by  the 
knowledge  of  his  few  frailties,  not  one  of  them  to 
his  discredit. 

After  visiting  Brigham,  in  1653,  when  his 
preaching  so  affected  the  people  at  “John  Wilkin¬ 
son’s  steeple-house,”  he  tells  us  in  his  journal,  “As 
I  was  sitting  in  an  house  full  of  people,  declaring 
the  word  of  life  unto  them,  I  cast  my  eye  upon  a 
woman  and  discovered  an  evil  spirit  in  her.  I  was 
moved  of  the  Lord  to  speak  sharply  unto  her,  and 
told  her  she  was  under  the  influence  of  an  unclean 
spirit,  whereupon  the  woman  went  out  of  the  room. 
I,  being  a  stranger  there,  and  knowing  nothing  of 
the  woman  outwardly,  the  people  wondered  and 
told  me  afterward  I  had  discovered  a  great  thing, 
for  all  the  country  looked  upon  her  to  be  a  wicked 
person.  The  Lord  had  given  me  a  spirit  of  dis¬ 
cerning,  by  which  I  many  times  saw  the  states 
and  conditions  of  people,  and  would  try  their  spirits. 
Not  long  before,  as  I  was  going  to  a  meeting,  I 
saw  some  women  in  a  field,  and  I  discerned  them  to 
be  Witches  and  I  was  moved  to  go  out  of  my  way 
into  the  Field  to  them  and  declare  unto  them  their 
Conditions :  telling  them  plainly,  They  were  in  the 
Spirit  of  Witchcraft.1 

'The  editing  of  the  Journal  has  modified  Fox’s  own  statement, 
in  every  published  edition.  The  quotation  is  from  the  original 
manuscript.  A  remarkable  etching  has  recently  been  done  by 
Robert  Spence,  an  English  artist,  representing  this  scene  with 

[20] 


THE  LICHFIELD  INCIDENT 


“Another  time  there  came  one  into  Swarthmoor 
Hall  in  the  meeting  time,  and  I  was  moved  to 
speak  sharply  to  her,  and  told  her  she  was  under 
the  power  of  an  evil  spirit,  and  the  people  said 
afterward  she  was  generally  accounted  so  to  be.” 
“There  came  also  another  time  a  woman  and  stood 
at  a  distance  from  me.  I  cast  mine  eye  upon  her 
and  said,  ‘Thou  hast  been  an  harlot,’  for  I  saw 
perfectly  the  condition  and  life  of  the  woman.  She 
answered,  many  could  tell  her  of  her  outward  sins, 
but  none  could  tell  her  of  her  inward.  I  told  her, 
‘Her  heart  was  not  right  before  the  Lord,  and  that 
from  the  inward  came  the  outward.’  This  woman 
was  afterward  convinced  of  God’s  truth  and  became 
a  Friend.” 

The  remarkable  occurrence  at  Lichfield  two  years 
previous  is  an  example  of  the  heights  of  enthusi¬ 
asm  to  which  Fox’s  religious  fervor  occasionally 
rose.  Barefooted  and  bareheaded,  travel-stained 
and  weary,  Fox,  under  the  deepest  spiritual  sense 
of  duty,  passed  through  the  streets  of  Lichfield, 
crying  loudly,  “Woe  to  the  bloody  city  of  Lich¬ 
field  !”  The  incident  as  related  by  him  is  too  long 
for  insertion  here,  but  is  very  striking.  He  had 
just  been  released  from  Derby  jail,  in  a  condition 

the  “witches”  in  the  field.  See  frontispiece.  Mr.  Spence  owns 
the  original  MS.  Journal. 


[21] 


WITCHCRAFT  AND  QUAKERISM 


of  exhaustion  and  nervous  strain,  and  Professor 
James  puts  upon  pathological  grounds  the  state  of 
trance  or  nervous  exaltation  in  which  Fox  trod  the 
streets  of  the  town.  Fox’s  own  rather  far-fetched 
explanation  is  not  adequate;  he  says  it  was  because 
“that  in  the  Emperor  Diocletian’s  time,  a  thousand 
Christians  were  martyred  in  Lichfield.”  It  was  re¬ 
quired  of  him  to  “raise  a  memorial  of  the  blood 
of  those  martyrs,  which  had  been  shed  a  thousand 
years  before  and  lay  cold  in  the  streets.”  Faulty 
chronology  leaves  the  explanation  of  Fox  without 
historical  basis,  which,  however,  makes  none  the 
less  sincere  our  sympathy  for  his  religious  con¬ 
victions.  No  doubt  Fox’s  mind,  after  this  per¬ 
formance,  was  clear,  and  his  satisfaction  upon  the 
subject  unclouded.  It  is  to  be  interpreted  simply 
as  an  act  of  obedience  to  an  apprehended  duty,  and 
as  such,  is  easily  understood.  There  are  many  such 
instances;  that  good  judgment  did  not  accompany 
the  act  makes  it  none  the  less  sincere.  It  is  quite 
possible,  also,  as  a  recent  writer  has  pointed  out, 
that  Fox  had  a  sub-conscious  recollection  of  the 
burning  of  one  Wightman,  an  early  Dissenter,  at 
Lichfield,  an  event  which  took  place  not  forty  years 
before,  and  to  which  the  minds  of  the  inhabitants 
must  have  at  once  reverted,  even  if  Fox  himself 


[22] 


THE  COMMON-SENSE  OF  FOX 

may  not  have  recalled  the  fact  of  the  incident 
clearly.1 

The  founder  of  Quakerism  was  a  social-religious 
reformer.  His  mysticism,  while  a  very  real  thing, 
was  but  a  small  part  of  his  life,  whose  object  was 
to  teach  his  fellowmen  the  proper  channels  into 
which  to  direct  their  human  activities.  He  em¬ 
ployed  his  eight  periods  of  imprisonment,  not  in 
the  ecstatic  contemplation  and  meditation  of  the 
true  mystic,  but  in  writing  most  plain  and  prac¬ 
tical  common-sense  letters  to  his  people,  to  the  Court 
and  Parliament,  and  to  the  English  nation  at  large, 
as  well  as  in  planning  out  further  mission  campaigns 
for  himself  and  his  companions. 

'“Two  or  three  years  ago  there  was  found,  in  the  State  Paper 
office  [at  London],  a  series  of  documents  relating  to  one  John 
Trendall,  a  mason,  who,  in  1639,  was  imprisoned  for  holding 
religious  meetings  apart  from  the  Episcopal  Church.  *  *  A 

proposal  was  made  in  all  seriousness  that  he  should  be  burned 
at  the  stake!  *  *  The  Lords  of  the  Council  wrote  to  Neile, 
Archbishop  of  York,  asking  as  to  how  he  had  brought  about 
the  burning  of  one  Wightman,  twenty-seven  years  previously.” 
The  Archbishop  stated  that  the  execution  had  taken  place  in 
1612,  at  Lichfield,  during  his  own  bishopric  over  that  see,  and 
that  he  had  had  the  assistance  of  Laud,  then  Archbishop  of 
Canterbury.  Neile  urged  the  good  done  by  this  burning,  and 
that  of  Legate  in  the  same  year,  the  last  occurrences  of  the 
kind  in  England.  [See  Transactions  of  Congregational  Society 
for  July,  1902 ;  also  an  article  by  A.  Neave  Brayshaw,  "The 
Burning  of  Non-conformists,”  in  British  Friend  for  January, 

1903] 


[23] 


WITCHCRAFT  AND  QUAKERISM 


Professor  Royce  has  told  us  that  Fox  was  sub¬ 
ject  to  nervous  attacks  which  were  due  to  sym¬ 
pathetic  conditions.  They  were  often  brought  about 
by  malnutrition,  and  it  was  of  one  of  these  that 
he  fell  ill  in  1664,  at  the  age  of  forty,  when  “bur¬ 
dened  with  the  world’s  spirit,”  i.e.,  Quaker  per¬ 
secution,  during  which  attack  he  temporarily  lost 
both  sight  and  hearing.  The  “openings”  of  Fox 
— who,  with  all  other  religious  people  of  his  time, 
took  his  Bible  as  a  literal  guide  and  test  of  piety — 
were  given  him  by  that  inner  vision  in  which  spir¬ 
itual  conditions  are  felt,  not  seen;  and  it  is  only 
to  such  clear,  and  at  the  same  time,  sympathetic 
minds  as  that  of  Fox  that  these  do  not  prove  dan¬ 
gerous.  Fox  was  full  of  strength,  of  fearless  en- 
ergy,  of  nervous  power,  which  translated  them¬ 
selves  at  once  into  the  widest  activities.  His  whole 
life  was  objective.  But  many  of  the  temperaments 
to  which  his  preaching  made  its  appeal,  under  the 
resulting  nervous  excitement,  dropped  into  sub¬ 
jective  self-analysis;  and,  without  the  impulse,  the 
ability  or  the  spiritual  poise  of  their  leader,  they 
fell  into  the  conditions,  which,  in  the  early  days 
of  unsettlement,  sent  certain  erratic  converts  of 
Fox  aimlessly  wandering  about  the  country;  it  is 
these  who  brought  upon  Quakerism  its  first  re¬ 
proach.  The  enthusiasm  of  Fox,  tinged  with  the 


[24] 


FOX  AT  ULVERSTONE 


fervor  of  religious  conviction  that  struck  so  deeply 
into  the  English  people  during  the  Commonwealth, 
partook  more  of  the  spirit  of  the  prophet  Isaiah 
than  that  of  any  preacher  since  his  day. 

But  Fox  did  not  rally  his  people  to  any  credulity. 
Although  he  speaks  soberly  of  the  existence  of  spir¬ 
its,  he  is  often  ready  to  ridicule  the  superstitions 
of  the  people.  When  he  was  taken  prisoner  in 
1659  under  a  warrant  from  Major  Porter,  then 
Mayor  of  Ulverstone,  fifteen  men  sat  up  all  night 
to  watch  him;  “some  of  them,”  he  says,  “sat  in  the 
chimney,  for  fear  I  should  escape  up  the  chimney, 
such  dark  imaginations  possessed  them!”  Again 
he  comes  out  in  a  fine  bit  of  eloquence,  in  which 
clearly  enough  the  ringing  Quaker  “testimony” 
against  superstition  is  heard.  “The  prisoners  and 
some  wild  people  *  *  *  *  talked  of  spirits 

that  haunted  Devonsdale,  and  how  many  had  died 
in  it.  But  I  told  them  that  if  all  the  devils  in  hell 
were  there,  I  was  over  them  in  the  power  of  God, 
and  found  no  such  thing,  for  Christ  our  Priest 
would  sanctify  the  walls  and  the  house  to  us,  He 
who  bruised  the  head  of  the  Devil.”  In  the  early 
Quaker  days,  the  reality  of  witchcraft  had  never 
been  called  in  question.  Fancy,  then,  how  radical 
must  have  seemed  Fox’s  paper  addressed,  “To  Sea¬ 
faring  Men,”  dated  Swarthmoor  Hall,  the  28th  of 


[25] 


WITCHCRAFT  AND  QUAKERISM 


Eighth  month,  1676.  Referring  to  the  power  of 
witches  in  the  minds  of  sailors,  to  create  storms 
and  breed  cyclones,  he  says,  “And  let  New  England 
professors  (of  religion)  see  whether  or  no  they 
have  not  sometimes  cast  some  poor  simple  people 
into  the  sea  on  pretence  of  being  witches.”  *  * 

*  “For  you  may  see  that  it  was  the  Lord  who 
sent  out  the  wind  and  raised  the  mighty  storm  in 
the  sea,  and  not  your  witches,  or  ill-tongued  peo¬ 
ple,  as  you  vainly  imagine.” 


Witch  of  Endor. 

After  Schnorr  von  Carolsfeld. 


[26] 


III. 


HE  Quakers  were  so  remarkably 
free  from  popular  superstitions, 
that  we  are  not  surprised  to  find 
this  one  more  instance  in  which 
the  world  had  to  have  its  fling  at 


them.  There  are  cases  of  individuals  among 
them  who  entered  into  superstitious  practices, 
and  those  cited  are  from  the  records.  But  as 
a  body,  the  Society  at  once  discountenanced 
everything  of  the  sort.  In  1667,  Southwark 
Monthly  Meeting  (London)  records,  “Richard  and 
Ann  Cookbree  has  denied  meetings;  he  is  given  to 
study  astrologie,  and  is  run  into  imaginations.” 
The  next  year,  “Sara  Pratt  has  spoken  flightily 
of  Friends  and  Truth  *  *  *  *  and  has  taken 

part  in  a  superstitious  burying.1 

Elizabeth  Pennitt,  servant  to  Mary  Bannister,  a 
Yorkshire  Friend,  took  out  a  certificate  as  a  travel- 

JBeck  and  Ball.  “History  London  Friends’  Meetings.”  p.  228. 


[27] 


WITCHCRAFT  AND  QUAKERISM 


ing  minister  in  1709.  The  records  of  Scarborough 
Monthly  Meeting1  say  that  she  “ran  into  ungodly 
and  vain  practices,  going  unto  those  that  pretend 
to  be  fortune-tellers,  and  following  their  directions 
and  counsell,  in  order  to  accomplish  what  she  de¬ 
signed  *  *  *  which  has  been  proved  to  her 

face.”  Sixteen  men  Friends  signed  her  minute  of 
disownment,  in  September,  1709.  Eighteen  months 
later,  she  sent  an  acknowledgment  from  Whitby 
Preparative  Meeting,  owning  it  a  “great  Evil  to  ask 
Counsell  of  Man  or  Woman  to  know  what  will 
befall  one  in  this  life.” 

So  late  as  1728,  the  same  Friends  of  Southwark 
Meeting  disowned  a  man  “for  joining  with  an  al- 
chymist  in  attempting  to  transmute  metals.”2  The 
whole  neighborhood  of  Oxford  was  very  supersti¬ 
tious.  At  Witney,  a  nearby  village,  may  still  be 
seen  a  house  in  which  the  superstitious  householder 
has  driven  six  ghost-nails  between  the  courses  of 
the  stones.3 

An  old  Minute  Book  of  Hawkshead  Meeting, 
dating  from  1699,  contains  the  following  entry: 
“Hawkshead,  1744.  There  was  given  for  ye  sup¬ 
ply  of  3  poor  ffriends  within  Hawkshead  meeting, 

•“Quoted  by  J.  W.  Rowntree.  “The  Rise  of  Quakerism  in  York¬ 
shire.” 

zBeck  and  Ball.  “History  London  Friends’  Meetings.”  p.  225. 

“Monk.  “History  of  Oxford.”  p.  54. 


[28] 


FAMILY  BIBLES 


by  George  Knipe,  ye  sume  of  £160,  ye  will  of  ye 
said  G.  K.,  with  instructions  and  ful  manadgements 
of  sd.  afairs  by  his  Trustees.  *  *  *  *  He 

gave  also  a  Gold  Ring,  which  is  kept  in  Mary  Sat- 
terthwaite  hand  yt  any  poor  ffriends  may  have  it 
to  wash  sore  eyes  with.”1  Possibly  this  entry  shows 
more  ignorance  of  medicine  than  any  real  supersti¬ 
tion. 

“I  have  a  sty  here,  Chilax.” 

Chilax.  “I  have  no  gold  to  cure  it,  not  a  penny.”* 

The  custom  of  naming  the  day  and  hour  of  birth 
arose  originally  from  the  necessity  to  facilitate  the 
calculations  of  the  astrologer  in  “casting  a  nativ¬ 
ity,”  or  telling  the  future  fortune  of  a  child,  should 
it  become  necessary.  We  usually  find  the  Quaker 
records  falling  in  with  the  custom,  particularly  those 
that  are  private — in  old  family  Bibles,  for  instance. 
The  state  of  the  weather  is  occasionally  re¬ 
ferred  to,  but  there  is  never,  at  least  so  far  as  has 
yet  appeared,  any  evidence  of  actual  belief  in  astro¬ 
logical  prophecy,  such  as  is  found  in  the  parish 
registers  of  the  period.  An  instance  taken  from 
the  register  of  the  parish  of  St.  Edmunds,  Dudley, 
shows  how  necessary  many  thought  it  to  record 
all  possible  data.  “1539.  Samuell,  son  of  Sir  Wil- 

’William  Satterthwaite  in  London  Friend  for  Ninth  month,  9th, 
1892. 

’Beaumont  and  Fletcher.  “The  Mad  Lovers.”  Act  V,  Sc.  4. 


[29] 


WITCHCRAFT  AND  QUAKERISM 


liam  Smith  Clarke,  Vicar  of  Duddly,  was  born  on 
Friday  morninge,  at  4  of  the  Clock,  being  the 
XXVIIJ  day  of  February,  the  signe  of  that  day 
was  in  the  middle  of  aquaris  Q  ;  the  signe  of  the 
monthe  *  ;  the  planet  of  that  day  $  ;  plenet  of  the 
same  ower  5? ,  and  the  morow  day  whose  name  hath 
continued  in  Duddly  since  the  Conqueste.”1 

The  family  Bible  of  George  McMillan,  an  Irish 
Quaker  who  came  out  to  Pennsylvania,  records  his 
birth,  “In  ye  yeare  of  our  Lord  1732  The  2d.  day 
of  the  4th.  Month  About  (record  torn)  Noone  and 
18th.  of  the  Moons  Age.”  Probably  this  was  writ¬ 
ten  in  County  Antrim,  Ireland.2  The  cabalistic 
signs  of  the  zodiac  have  always  been  associated 
with  potato  planting.  Early  tables  of  alphabets  of 
ancient  languages  had  not  appeared  before  the  pub¬ 
lication  of  several  editions  of  Webster’s  Dictionary, 
or  there  would  no  doubt  have  been  opened  new  solu¬ 
tions  to  some  of  these  occult  problems ! 

There  is  plenty  of  evidence  that  the  world  re¬ 
garded  the  early  Quakers  as  in  league  with  the 
powers  of  darkness,  because  of  their  strange  denial 
of  what  everybody  owned.  The  British  Museum 
furnishes  any  number  of  papers,  pamphlets  and 
books  written  in  regard  to  witchcraft. 

JT.  F.  Thistleton-Dyer.  “Social  Life  as  Told  by  the  Parish 
Registers.”  p.  1 22. 

2A.  C.  Myers.  “Irish  Quaker  Immigrants  into  Pennsylvania.” 
401. 

[30] 


CURIOUS  PUBLICATIONS 


What  wonder  that  these  gentlemen  turned  their 
guns  against  the  Quakers?  The  year  1655  seems 
to  have  been  fertile  in  such  literature  as  the  follow¬ 
ing,  holding  the  Quakers  up  to  ridicule: 

1.  “The  Quakers’  Fiery  Beacon,  or  the  Shaking  Ran¬ 
ter’s  Ghost”  (published  for  G.  Horton.)1  An  extract 
from  this  charming  volume  runs  thus:  “It  is  evident  in 
some  instances  that  they  are  Anti-Magisterical,  as  well 
as  Anti-Ministerial ;  yea,  that  these  Quakers  use  inchanted 
Bracelets,  Potions,  Sorcery  and  Witchcraft  to  intoxicate 
their  Novices  and  draw  them  to  their  party.” 

2.  “The  Quaker’s  Terrible  Vision,  or  The  Devil’s 
Progress  to  the  City  of  London,”  &c.,  &c.  For  G.  Horton, 
in  the  great  yeare  of  Quaking,  1655.”  1°  this,  the  Quakers 
are  said  to  be  “an  old  Love-Lock,  cut  off  from  Satan’s 
head.”2 

3.  “The  Quaker’s  Dream,  or  The  Devil’s  Pilgrimage 
in  England.  Being  an  infallible  Relation  of  their  sev¬ 
eral  meetings,  Shreekings,  Shakings,  Quakings,  Roarings, 
Yellings,  Howlings,  Tremblings,  *****  with  a 
narration  of  their  several  Arguments,  Tenets,  Principles, 
and  Strange  Doctrines;  The  Strange  and  Wonderful  Sa- 
tanical  apparitions  and  the  apearing  of  the  Devil  unto 
them  in  the  likeness  of  a  Black  Boar,  a  Dog  with  flam¬ 
ing  Eyes,  and  a  black  man  without  a  head,  causing  the 
Dogs  to  bark,  the  Swine  to  cry,  and  the  cattel  to  run,  to 
the  great  Admiration  of  all  that  shall  read  the  same." 

i655-3 

‘Brit.  Mus.  Lib.  E.  844/13. 

‘Brit.  Mus.  Lib.  E.  835/10. 

-  “Brit.  Mus.  Lib.  E.  833/14. 

[31] 


WITCHCRAFT  AND  QUAKERISM 


All  the  above  are  illustrated  with  appropriate 
wood-cuts ;  the  last  has  under  each  picture  on  the 
title-page,  the  inscriptions,  “Free-Will,”  “Walk  An¬ 
swerable,”  “The  Light  Within  You,”  “Be  Thou 
Merry,”  and  “Above  Ordinances.”  These,  how¬ 
ever,  lead  us  into  the  field  of  satirical  anti-Quaker 
publications,  which  needs  to  be  thoroughly  ex¬ 
plored.  The  prints  that  were  published  at  this 
time,  as  well  as  the  pamphlets,  books  and  broad¬ 
sides,  form  a  very  necessary  part  of  Quaker  his¬ 
tory,  disagreeable  and  coarse,  like  the  times,  but 
none  the  less  important,  and  quite  neglected. 

A  story  is  told  of  St.  Medard,  who,  while  prom¬ 
enading  one  fine  day  on  the  shore  of  the  Red  Sea, 
saw  Satan  carrying  in  a  bag  a  number  of  sinners. 
The  saint,  in  compassion  for  the  poor  souls,  slit 
open  the  bag,  whereupon  the  prisoners  escaped. 

“Away  went  the  Quaker — away  went  the  Baker — 

Away  went  the  Friar — that  fine  fat  Ghost, 

Whose  marrow  Old  Nick  had  intended  to  pick, 

Dressed  like  a  woodcock  and  served  on  toast!”1 

A  book  which  had  an  early  vogue  on  the  Ameri¬ 
can  side  of  the  Atlantic,  and  which  is  interesting 
and  curious,  both  to  the  student  of  history  and 
folk-lore,  was  a  quarto  in  Latin  and  German,  de¬ 
scribing  the  “Philtres  Enthusiasticus,  or  English 

’Legend  of  St.  Medard.  From  Ingoldsby  Legends. 


[32] 


ANABAPTISTICUM  ET  ENTI  lUSIASTlCUM 

PANTHEON 


UnC 


- . — acutely 

.nlntim  n»  wrtel*t hnkn ;  mil  tutlm  ,ur  ^cbtHn,|?$n 

*tn  jiurtfcrn  Hen  5U  @ettcs  vflnc  tme  <£tb«ltunn  C 

fciiur  i£^r(|iii(5tn  Sit^cn;  '  J 
©m©cift!it^nr -  2u4' 


‘ f  ■<//’<, 


3m  Dot^CbriRi 


Title-page  of  “  Pantheon,”  published  in  Hamburg  in  1702. 
From  copy  in  Haverford  College  Library. 


CURIOUS  PUBLICATIONS 


and  Dutch  Quaker-Powder  l”1  This  extraordinary 
volume  sought  to  prove  the  use  of  certain  nostrums 
among  the  Quakers,  in  order  to  propagate  their 
faith.  The  Philter  was  supposed  to  be  administered 
to  the  person  whom  the  Quakers  sought  to  pros¬ 
elytize.  Soon  a  trembling  or  quaking  state  was 
reached,  when  the  conversion  was  pronounced  com¬ 
plete.  The  author  cites  several  proofs  under  his 
affidavit  that  these  were  Quaker  methods.  Such 
books  tickled  the  popular  fancy  and  had  a  large  cir¬ 
culation.  A  copy  of  this,  which  is  believed  to  be 
unique,  is  owned  by  Dr.  J.  F.  Sachse,  of  Pennsyl¬ 
vania,  and  bears  the  imprint  of  the  University  of 
Rostock. 

Another  curious  old  German  folio,  of  1702,  pub¬ 
lished  in  Hamburg,  is  entitled  “Anabaptisticum  et 
Enthusiasticum  Pantheon  und  Geistliches  Lust- 
Haus,  wider  die  Alten  Quacker  und  Neuen  Frei- 
Geister,”  etc.2  The  volume  is  full  of  unfounded 
aspersions  against  the  Quakers,  all  the  satirical  pub¬ 
lications  against  the  sect  in  England  seeming  to 
have  been  taken  seriously  and  translated  into  Ger- 

*Its  title  is  “Dissertatio  Historico-Theologica  de  Philtres  En- 
thusiasticus  Angelico  Batavis,”  etc.  Rostochl,  Typis  Joh.  Wep- 
ling  I,  Seren.  Princ.  and  Acad.  Typog. 

2This  great  folio  is  not  so  rare  ;  copies  are  owned  by  Haver- 
ford  College,  Penna. ;  The  Boston  Public  Library;  British 
Museum,  etc. 


[33] 


WITCHCRAFT  AND  QUAKERISM 


man.  The  Quakers  are  represented  as  shooting 
men  down  in  the  streets,  or  breaking  faith  to  the 
Sovereign;  and  James  Nayler’s  eccentricities  are 
given  as  characteristic  of  the  Society.  The  second 
part  alludes  to  the  Quaker-Powder  again,  and  other 
enchantments  of  the  sect !  Under  the  heading  “Der 
Quaker  und  Schwarmer  Zauber — Kiinste,”  is  the 
following  stanza : 

“Wer  auch  der  Tauff  abschwert,  den  Teuffel  ehrt  mit 
beten, 

Die  Prediger  behezt,  mit  Satan  Unziicht  iibt, 

Wem  dieser  Zittern  macht,  wer  Quacker-pulver  giebt — 
1st  der  nicht  in  den  bund  der  Zauberei  getreten?”1 

In  this  connection,  we  may  notice  the  curious 
“Looking  Glass  for  George  Fox,”  in  which  Ludovic 
Muggleton,  the  leader  of  the  “Muggletonians,”  de¬ 
clares  that  his  sentence  of  damnation  upon  the 
Quakers  has  caused  the  cessation  of  their  “witch¬ 
craft  fits.”  “I  do  know  and  affirm  that  those  speak¬ 
ers  of  the  Quakers  and  others  whom  I  have  passed 
the  sentence  of  damnation  upon,  that  they  have  not 
nor  do  grow  in  any  experience  of  Revelation  since 
the  Sentence  of  Damnation  was  passed  upon  them.” 
“For  the  Quakers’  Revelation  doth  arise  in  them 

1Whoso  abjures  baptism;  honors  the  Devil  by  prayer;  wor¬ 
ries  preachers ;  commits  sin  with  Satan  and  is  made  by  his 
power  to  tremble ;  administers  Quaker-powders,  has  he  not  en¬ 
tered  into  the  covenant  of  magic  arts? 


[34] 


CURIOUS  PUBLICATIONS 


only  when  the  witchcraft  fit  is  upon  them,  nay,  I 
have  known  some  that  have  followed  the  Quakers, 
desiring  to  be  of  them,  and  earnestly  desiring  in 
their  meetings  to  have  these  fits  as  other  Quakers 
had.”  “And  the  Cause  why  these  Persons  afore¬ 
said  could  have  no  such  Fits,  it  was  because  they 
had  talked  with  me  before  they  fell  to  the  Quakers’ 
principles,  so  that  no  Witchcraft-Fit  could  be  pro¬ 
duced  in  them,  though  their  endeavors  were  great!” 


1.  The  Quaker. 

2.  The  Ranter. 

3.  The  Robinsonian. 

4.  The  Jew. 

From  the  “Pantheon,”  etc. 


[35] 


IV. 


E  have  seen  that  Massachusetts, 
very  early  in  her  career,  made  a 
witchcraft  law ;  the  Plymouth 
Colony  declared  against  witches 
in  1636,  discriminating,  in  1671, 
with  great  care  against  the  confusion  of  real  cases, 
with  those  of  the  Indian  wizards,  who  remained 
undisturbed  in  their  rites.1 

Rhode  Island  never  had  a  witchcraft  trial,  al¬ 
though  she  made  the  usual  tribute  to  the  age  by 
giving  the  subject  place  on  her  statute  books.  New 
Hampshire  had  a  few  cases  of  witchcraft;  the  ear¬ 
liest,  in  1656,  was  that  of  Jane  Welford,  who,  when 
brought  before  the  special  court  of  Dover  and 

1  “Saint  Benedict  is  reported  to  have  cured  a  Brother  who 
was  possessed  of  the  Devil  by  thrashing  him  soundly.  It  is 
to  be  regretted  that  the  Protestantism  of  the  New  Englanders 
prevented  their  knowing  and  experimenting  with  the  Saint’s 
specific,  which,  in  all  ages  of  the  world,  has  been  admitted  to 
be  wonderfully  efficacious  1” 


[36] 


WITCHCRAFT  IN  PENNSYLVANIA 


Portsmouth,  was  allowed  to  go  on  her  good  be¬ 
havior.  Afterward,  1669,  she  brought  action  for 
damages  against  her  accusers,  and  received  five 
pounds  and  costs.1  Several  minor  cases  came  up 
at  the  time  of  the  Salem  trials,  apparently  out  of 
sympathy,  in  neighborhoods  bordering  on  Massa¬ 
chusetts.  The  law  of  1680  prescribed  death  for  any 
Christian,  “so-called,”  who  should  be  a  Witch — 
“that  is,  hath,  or  consulteth  with,  a  familiar  Spirit.” 
The  law,  disallowed  in  England,  was  never  enforced 
in  New  Hampshire,  and  no  witch  was  ever  put  to 
death  there. 

No  witch  was  ever  burned  in  Virginia.  But 
Grace  Sherwood,  young  and  comely,  we  surmise, 
won  from  a  relenting  justice  the  order  that  her  con¬ 
demnation  to  the  ducking-stool  was  to  be  “in  no 
wise  without  her  consent,  or  if  the  day  should  be 
rainy  (!)  or  in  any  way  to  endanger  her  health!”* 
Quaker  Pennsylvania  was  free  from  such  an 
act  until  1718.  In  this  year,  an  old  English  law 
was  revived.3  “Be  it  further  enacted  by  the  au¬ 
thority  aforesaid,  that  another  statute  made  in  the 

3F.  B.  Sanborne.  “New  Hampshire.”  p.  120. 

3Mrs.  Rogers.  “The  Mother  of  Washington  and  Her  Times.” 

P-  43- 

3This  law  may  be  found  in  Dallas,  Vol.  I,  entitled,  “An  Act 
for  the  Advancement  of  Justice,”  etc.,  and  was  passed  by  the 
Pennsylvania  Assembly,  31st  May,  1718.  Section  11  is  quoted. 


[37] 


WITCHCRAFT  AND  QUAKERISM 

i st  year  of  the  reign  of  King  James  I,  chap.  1 2, 
intitled  An  Act  against  Conjuration,  witchcraft,  and 
dealing  with  evil  and  wicked  spirits  shall  be  duly 
put  in  execution  in  this  Province  and  of  like  force 
and  effect  as  if  the  same  were  repeated  and  enacted.” 
This  long  act  involved  also  a  return  to  the  severe 
laws  of  the  old  criminal  code.  It  was  in  no  sense 
a  Quaker  law.  The  death  of  William  Penn  and 
the  confusion  of  the  struggle  on  the  subject  of  Af¬ 
firmation  caused  the  people,  in  order  to  secure  the 
favor  of  the  Sovereign,  to  copy  the  laws  of  the 
mother  country,  and  this  was  among  them.  Gov¬ 
ernor  Gookin’s  insistence  on  the  abandonment  of 
the  Colonial  law  of  affirmation  threatened  Quaker 
political  existence,  which,  in  fact,  did  not  end  until 
1756.  Exemption  from  oaths  was  obtained  for 
such  as  had  scruples  against  them,  along  with  the 
passage  of  the  above  law.  There  is,  however,  no 
record  of  any  trial  for  witchcraft  while  this  was  in 
force. 

The  only  witchcraft  trial  in  the  province  of  Penn¬ 
sylvania  occurred  before  the  Council,  previous  to 
the  organization  of  the  Provincial  Court,  on  De¬ 
cember  27,  1683.1  Only  one  of  two  old  women, 
both  of  them  Swedes,  seems  to  have  been  tried. 

'The  record  of  this  trial  may  be  found  in  Colonial  Records  of 
Pennsylvania,  Vol.  I. 


[38] 


WITCHCRAFT  IN  PENNSYLVANIA 


Yeshro  Hendrickson’s  name  disappears.  Margaret 
Mattson  lived  upon  her  husband’s  plantation  on  the 
Delaware,  near  Crum  Creek,  in  Ridley  township, 
now  Delaware  County.  She  remained  for  long  in 
local  legend,  the  “Witch  of  Ridley  Creek.”  At 
her  trial  she  appeared  before  William  Penn,  his 
Attorney  General,  a  Grand  Jury  of  twenty-one  per¬ 
sons,  all  apparently  English,  and  a  Petit  Jury  of 
twelve  persons,  one  of  whom  was  a  Swede.  One 
Councilman,  Lasse  Cock,  was  also  a  prominent 
Swede.  The  case  was  heard,  all  the  formalities 
gone  through  with,  and  the  verdict  rendered  the 
same  afternoon,  as  follows :  “Guilty  of  having  the 
Comon  Fame  of  a  Witch,  but  not  Guilty  in  man¬ 
ner  and  Forme  as  Shee  stands  Endicted.”  There 
were  various  accusations  of  a  vague  sort  against  the 
poor  woman,  as  that  she  had  bewitched  calves, 
geese,  cattle  and  a  few  persons.  Her  own  daughter 
testified  that  she  was  in  league  with  the  Devil.  But 
the  sober  sanity  of  the  Quaker  Jury  brought  in  an 
eminently  safe  verdict.  Tradition  has  it  that  Wil¬ 
liam  Penn  said  to  her:  “Art  thou  a  witch?  Hast 
thou  ridden  through  the  air  on  a  broomstick?” 
When  the  poor,  confused  creature  answered,  “Yes,” 
he  said  that  she  had  a  perfect  right  to  ride  upon 
a  broomstick,  that  he  knew  no  law  whatever  against 
it,  and  promptly  ordered  her  discharge.  This  was 
[39] 


WITCHCRAFT  AND  QUAKERISM 


the  only  witchcraft  trial  ever  before  the  Pennsyl¬ 
vania  Courts. 

A  thorough  search  of  the  meeting  records  among 
Quakers  would  probably  result  in  some  interesting 
minutes  upon  this  whole  subject.  In  Pennsylvania, 
in  1695,  ^  came  to  the  knowledge  of  Chichester 
and  Concord  Monthly  Meeting  that  two  young  per¬ 
sons  of  the  latter  township  were  engaged  in  studies 
and  practices  regarded  as  dangerous  by  the  Friends. 
The  matter  was  treated  with  great  gravity  by  the 
meeting.  The  two  were  accused  of  following  “As¬ 
trology  and  other  arts  and  sciences,  as  Geomancy 
and  Chiromancy  and  Necromancy,  etc.”  It  was 
debated  “that  the  Sence  of  this  meeting  is,  that 
the  study  of  these  Sciences  brings  a  V eile  upon  the 
understanding  and  a  death  upon  the  life.”  We  can¬ 
not  too  strongly  note  that  this  was  at  the  very 
moment  when  Massachusetts  was  thrilled  with  the 
Salem  horrors,  and  martyrs  like  Rebecca  Nourse, 
far  superior  to  her  cruel  judges,  had  been  put  to 
death  for  vile  and  flimsy  superstitions.  The  meet¬ 
ing  ordered  the  young  men,  as  well  as  their  father, 
to  be  spoken  to  officially  upon  the  subject.  The 
conference  took  place : 

“Philip  Roman  and  his  brother  Robert,  friends 
of  Chichester,  seemed  to  disown  that  it  mentioned, 
except  the  Astrology.  Much  was  said  to  them,  but 


[40] 


WITCHCRAFT  IN  PENNSYLVANIA 


it  was  not  received.  At  last  they  proposed  to  the 
meeting,  if  they  thought  well  of  it,  to  confer  with 
Nicholas  Newlin  and  Jacob  Chandler,  and  if  they 
could  convince  them  that  it  was  evil,  they  would 
leave  it.”  The  meeting  accepted  the  offer  of  the 
young  men.  At  the  next  meeting  (January,  1696), 
the  committee  reported  that  they  had  conferred 
with  the  young  men,  and  there  had  been  “many 
arguments  on  both  sides — at  length,  Philip  con¬ 
cluded  with  us  that  he  did  not  know  that  he  should 
use  that  art  of  Astrology  again,  for  he  had  denied 
several  that  came  to  him  to  be  resolved  of  their 
questions  already.  Robert  promised  the  same,  but 
with  this  reserve — unless  it  was  to  do  some  great 
good  with  it.  From  which  belief  of  some  great 
good,  we  could  not  remove  him.”  This  was  not 
satisfactory  to  the  meeting.  Philip  was  required 
“to  give  forth  a  paper  to  condemn  his  practice  of 
resolving  questions  in  Astrology,  concerning  Loss 
and  Gain,  with  other  vain  questions.”  The  meet¬ 
ing  gave  out  a  similar  paper  against  Robert. 

But  this  business  did  not  end  with  the  meeting. 
An  offence  so  serious  as  the  practice  of  Geomancy 
could  not  escape  the  vigilance  of  the  Grand  Jury, 
particularly  as  the  foreman  lived  in  the  same  neigh¬ 
borhood  with  the  parties.  In  bringing  the  matter 
to  the  notice  of  the  Court  they  say : 

[41] 


WITCHCRAFT  AND  QUAKERISM 


“We,  the  grand  Inquest  by  the  King’s  author¬ 
ity,  presents  Robert  Roman  of  Chichester  for  prac¬ 
ticing  Geomancy  according  to  hidden  and  divining 
by  a  stick.  WALTER  MARTIN,  Foreman.” 

With  the  view  of  effectually  eradicating  the  evil, 
it  became  necessary  to  destroy  the  implements  of 
mischief  by  another  presentment,  which  is  thus  re¬ 
corded  : 

“We,  the  Grand  Inquest  by  the  King’s  author¬ 
ity  presents  the  following  books :  Hidon’s  Temple 
of  Wisdom,  which  teaches  Geomancy;  and  Scott’s 
Discovery  of  Witchcraft ;  and  Cornelias  Agrippa’s 
teaches  Secromancy.  WALTER  MARTIN,  Fore¬ 
man.” 

Upon  which  “the  Court  orders  as  many  of  said 
Books  as  can  be  found  be  brought  to  the  next 
court.” 

The  following  minute  records  the  closing  scene 
of  this  ludicrous  judicial  procedure: 

“Robert  Roman  was  called  to  answer  the  pre¬ 
sentment  of  the  Grand  Jury  the  last  Court;  he  ap¬ 
peared  and  submitted  himself  to  the  Bench.  The 
order  of  the  Court  is  that  he  shall  pay  five  pounds 
for  a  fine  and  all  charges,  and  never  practice  the 
arts,  and  behave  himself  well  for  the  future,  and 


[42] 


WITCHCRAFT  IN  PENNSYLVANIA 


he  promised  to  do  so,  whereupon  he  is  discharged 
for  this  time.”1 

This  was  the  action  of  the  Court.  Meantime,  the 
Friends  did  not  suffer  the  matter  to  drop.  The 
subject  was  carried  up  to  the  Quarterly  Meeting, 
and  a  Testimony  which  is  believed  to  be  unique, 
was  published  by  that  meeting  early  in  1696: 

“Whereas  the  meeting  being  acquainted  that 
some  persons  under  the  profession  of  truth,  and 
belonging  to  this  meeting,  who  professing  the  art 
of  Astrology,  have  undertaken  thereby  to  answer 
questions  and  give  Astronomical  Judgments  con¬ 
cerning  persons  and  things,  tending  to  the  dis¬ 
honor  of  God,  and  the  reproach  of  Truth  and  the 
great  hurt  of  themselves  and  those  who  come  to 
inquire  of  them;  and,  Whereas,  it  is  also  reported 
that  some  professing  truth  among  us  seems  too 
much  inclined  to  use  and  practice  Rabdomancy,  or 
consulting  with  a  staff,  and  such  like  things,  all 
which  have  brought  a  weighty  exercise  and  con¬ 
cern  upon  this  meeting,  as  well  because  of  the  re¬ 
proach,  that  is  already  brought  upon  the  truth 
hereby,  as  also  to  prevent,  as  much  as  in  us  lies, 
its  being  further  reproached  by  any  among  us  that 
may  attempt  to  follow  the  like  practices  for  time 
to  come : 

JDr.  George  Smith.  “History  of  Delaware  County.”  p.  193. 

[43] 


WITCHCRAFT  AND  QUAKERISM 


Now,  therefore,  being  met  together  in  the  fear 
of  the  Lord,  to  consider  not  only  the  affairs  of 
Truth  in  the  General,  but  also  that  it  may 
be  kept  clear  of  all  scandal  and  reproach  by  all 
that  profess  it  in  this  particular;  as  also  to  re¬ 
cover,  if  possible,  any  who,  for  want  of  diligence 
and  watchfulness  therein,  have  not  only  brought 
reproach  thereto,  but  have  also  hurt  their  own  souls, 
darkened  their  understandings,  hindered  themselves 
as  to  their  inward  exercise  and  spiritual  travel 
toward  the  land  of  rest  and  peace;  which,  as  we 
all  come  in  a  measure  to  be  possessed  of,  shall 
feel  great  satisfaction  and  sweet  content  in  our  con¬ 
dition,  as  God  by  His  good  hand  of  Providence 
shall  be  pleased  to  order  it.  Whether  we  have 
much  of  this  world  or  not;  whether  we  get  of  it 
or  not;  whether  we  lose  or  not  lose,  every  one 
being  in  his  place,  using  his  or  her  honest  and 
Christian  endeavors ;  we  shall  be  content  with  the 
success  of  our  labors  without  such  unlawful  look¬ 
ing  of  what  the  event  of  this  or  that  or  the  other 
thing  may  be;  by  running  to  inquire  of  the  star¬ 
gazers,  or  monthly  prognosticators,  which  of  old 
could  not  tell  their  own  events  (neither  can  they 
at  this  day).  For  we  read,  that  when  God  pro¬ 
nounced  His  judgments  against  Babylon  and  Chal¬ 
dea,  how  the  prophet  in  the  Zeal  of  the  Lord  called 


[44] 


WITCHCRAFT  IN  PENNSYLVANIA 


upon  such  men  in  a  contemptuous  manner,  saying, 
‘Evil  hath  come  upon  thee,  thou  shalt  not  know 
from  where  it  riseth.’  ‘And,’  said  he,  ‘let  now  the 
astrologers  and  star-gazers,  and  monthly  prognosti¬ 
cators  stand  up  and  save  thee  from  these  things 
that  shall  come  upon  thee.’  ‘Behold,’  said  he,  ‘they 
shall  be  as  stubble,  they  shall  not  deliver  them¬ 
selves,’  etc. 

“And  further,  we  may  read  how  the  Lord  strict¬ 
ly  commanded  His  people,  saying,  ‘There  shall  not 
be  found  among  you  any  that  useth  divination,  or 
an  observer  of  times,  or  an  enchanter,  or  a  witch, 
or  a  charmer,  or  a  consulter  of  familiar  spirits, 
or  a  wizard,  or  a  necromancer;  for  all  that  do  these 
things  are  an  abomination  to  the  Lord.’  So  that, 
upon  the  whole,  we  do  declare  against  all  the  afore¬ 
said  or  any  such  like  practices;  and  do  exhort  all, 
not  only  to  forbear  practising  any  of  those  things 
themselves,  but  also  that  they  discountenance  the 
practice  thereof  in  all  those  whomsoever  it  doth 
appear ;  and,  forasmuch  as  we  understand  that  those 
among  us  that  incline  to  those  things  are  chiefly 
some  youths,  who,  being  unacquainted  with  the 
enemy’s  mysterious  workings  and  devices,  whereby 
he  allures  their  minds  to  seek  and  aspire  after  such 
knowledge,  which,  when  they  have  attained  all  they 
can,  is  at  best  but  uncertain  and  fallable,  as  they 


[45] 


WITCHCRAFT  AND  QUAKERISM 


themselves  confess,  and,  therefore,  is  but  knowl¬ 
edge  falsely  so  called;  we  do,  therefore,  in  the  fear 
of  God,  caution,  warn,  and  exhort  all  parents,  who, 
if  at  any  time  they  see,  or  otherwise  understand, 
their  children  do  practice,  or  are  inclined  to  prac¬ 
tice  any  of  those  things,  that  speedily  thereupon 
they  use  their  utmost  endeavors,  not  only  like  Eli 
of  old,  to  forewarn  them,  but  also  to  restrain  them. 
And  further,  it  is  the  sincere  and  Christian  advice 
of  this  meeting  that,  when  any  among  us  have 
been  found  acting  in  any  of  those  things,  that 
Friends  of  the  particular  Monthly  Meeting  where 
such  dwell,  do  use  their  utmost  endeavors,  in  the 
way  and  order  of  the  Gospel  practiced  among  us, 
to  bring  such  person  or  persons  to  a  sense  of  their 
wrong  practices  therein;  and  that  they  do,  for  the 
clearing  of  Truth,  and  also  for  the  good  of  their 
own  souls,  condemn  what  they  have  already  done 
as  to  these  things;  and  that,  for  time  to  come,  they 
lay  them  aside,  and  practice  them  no  more. 

“And  also,  that  they  bring  in  all  books  that  re¬ 
late  to  those  things  to  the  Monthly  Meeting  they 
belong  to,  to  be  disposed  of  as  Friends  shall  think 
fit;  and,  if  any  shall  refuse  to  comply  with  such 
their  wholesome  and  Christian  advice,  that  then 
the  Friends  of  said  respective  Monthly  Meetings 


[46] 


WITCHCRAFT  IN  PENNSYLVANIA 


do  give  testimony  against  them;  and  so  Truth  will 
stand  over  them,  and  Friends  will  be  clear. 

“Let  this  be  jread  in  all  Monthly  Meetings,  and 
all  such  First-day  Meetings  where  and  as  often  as 
the  Friends  of  the  respective  Monthly  Meetings  do 
see  service  for  it.”1 

‘A.  Michener.  “Retrospect  of  Early  Quakerism.”  p.  366. 


[47] 


V. 

OT  until  1723  is  there  any  notice  of 
proceedings  against  witchcraft  in  the 
records  of  Philadelphia  Yearly  Meet¬ 
ing.  Then  occurs  the  following :  “It  is 
the  sense  and  judgment  of  this  meet¬ 
ing  that  if  any  professing  Truth  shall  apply  to  such 
persons  as,  by  color  of  any  art  or  skill  whatever, 
do  or  shall  pretend  knowledge  to  discover  things 
hiddenly  transacted,  or  tell  where  things  lost  or 
stolen  may  be  found;  or  if  any,  under  our  pro¬ 
fession,  do  or  pretend  to  any  such  Art  or  Skill,  we 
do  hereby,  in  just  abhorrence  of  such  doings,  di¬ 
rect  that  the  offender  be  speedily  dealt  with  and 
brought  under  censure.”  The  wording  of  the  para¬ 
graph  just  quoted  occurs  also  in  the  Book  of  Dis¬ 
cipline  for  Philadelphia  Yearly  Meeting  in  1806, 
when  it  was  ordered  that  those  who  pretended  to 
occult  knowledge  or  proceedings,  should  be  “testi¬ 
fied  against.” 


[48] 


ANN  WARDER’S  JOURNAL 

The  warning  of  1723  was  sent  to  New  Eng¬ 
land,  and  may  be  found  upon  the  records  of  Dart¬ 
mouth,  Massachusetts,  in  the  same  year.  It  is  not 
safe,  however,  to  assert  that  sorcery  or  witchcraft 
had  come  to  an  end,  even  among  the  Quakers,  ex¬ 
cept  officially,  although  the  mild  forms  in  which  it 
still  survived  gave  little  cause  for  notice.  Solid 
Pennsylvania  Quakers  who  lived  near  the  limits 
of  Philadelphia, — at  that  period  the  most  cosmo¬ 
politan  town  on  the  continent — had  no  liking  for 
witchcraft  or  its  allied  methods,  and  in  their  at¬ 
mosphere  of  sanity  and  hard  common-sense,  the 
art  failed  to  thrive.  But  the  young  Quakers,  even 
of  that  sober  town,  still  enjoyed  an  occasional  de¬ 
licious  thrill  from  a  mysterious  tale,  even  if  they 
did  not  actually  believe  its  circumstances,  and  in 
the  absence  of  novels,  a  good  ghost  story  was  a 
real  boon !  Ann  Warder,  that  vivacious  and  ob¬ 
servant  English  Quakeress,  who  took  up  her  abode 
among  her  husband’s  American  relatives  in  Phila¬ 
delphia  in  1786,  notes  in  her  journal  in  the  autumn 
of  that  year,  “Next  day,  dining  at  Ann  Giles’,  with 
some  Friends,  the  ladies  went  from  the  table,  leav¬ 
ing  the  men  to  their  Pipes,  and  went  upstairs  to 
our  chat,  in  which  I  readily  discovered  their  great 
love  for  talking  about  Aparitions,  Visions,  and  such 
strange  things;”  and  she  adds  several  unlikely 

[49] 


WITCHCRAFT  AND  QUAKERISM 


stories  of  no  consequence,  as  illustrations.  About 
the  same  time,  the  more  intellectual  of  the  younger 
London  Friends  were  having  a  great  craze  over 
what  they  called  “animal  magnetism, ”  and  the 
Frys,  Robinsons,  Molly  Knowles  (Dr.  Johnson’s 
friend),  and  others  were  meeting  about  at  each 
other’s  houses  to  have  what  might  be  called  “hyp¬ 
notizing  parties,”  to  experiment  upon  each  other. 

The  more  isolated  Quakers  in  the  central  tracts 
of  what  was  then  the  wilderness  of  Pennsylvania, 
and  particularly  those  in  the  neighborhood  of  the 
ordinary  German  settlers,  who  were  proverbially 
superstitious,  continued  to  cherish  the  idea  in  some 
form  or  other,  but  in  nothing  that  rose  to  the  dig¬ 
nity  of  an  official  notice.  Charms  were  sold — 
and  Quakers  were  often  the  purchasers — to  ward 
off  lightnings  or  disease,  dry  up  streams  or  the 
well  of  an  enemy,  to  reconcile  a  pair  of  quarrel¬ 
some  lovers,  or  force  the  cow  to  give  bloody  milk. 
It  is  probable  that  the  most  superstitious  among  the 
Quakers  in  the  whole  course  of  their  history,  not 
excepting  those  who  were  closest  to  the  witchcraft 
epidemic  of  Salem,  were  to  be  found  among  the 
country  Quakers  who  were  the  least  educated,  and 
who  dwelt  in  the  neighborhood  of  the  Germans  of 
Pennsylvania.  Those  in  the  more  southern  colony 
far  outnumbered  the  others,  whose  tendency  would 


[50] 


JOHANN  K.ELPIUS 
“  Hermit  of  the  Wissahickon.” 
From  an  old  print. 


SCIENCE  AND  SUPERSTITION 


rather  be  toward  disgust,  than  any  feeling  of  imi¬ 
tation.  The  presence  also  of  certain  learned  scien¬ 
tific  men  among  the  various  mystical  sects  that  soon 
followed  Penn  into  his  colony,  and  who  were  at¬ 
tracted  by  the  liberty  of  thought  there  made  pos¬ 
sible,  had  more  influence  upon  Pennsylvania  than 
has  yet  been  admitted.  There  is  here  a  whole  field 
of  historical  investigation.1  f 

The  Roscicrucians,  and  the  mystical  society  of 
“The  Woman  in  the  Wilderness,”  on  the  banks  of 
the  Wissahickon,  through  their  leader,  Koster, 
were  in  sympathy  with  the  followers  of  George 
Keith,  and  opposed  to  the  Orthodox  Quakers.  Kel- 
pius  and  Zimmerman,  their  astronomers,  were 
mediaeval  scholars  who  combined  astronomy  and 
theology  after  a  system  even  then  antiquated.  How 
easy  it  was,  in  the  nightly  vigils  in  the  old  observa¬ 
tory  of  their  “Tabernacle,”  to  calculate  a  horo¬ 
scope  along  with  an  eclipse,  or  to  observe  the  celes¬ 
tial  phenomena  with  an  eye  to  the  future  of  a  new¬ 
born  infant!  There  is  no  doubt  that  in  the  chem¬ 
ical  laboratories  below,  their  brethren  “labored  to 
discover  the  Elixir  Vitae,  and  the  Lapis  Philoso- 
phorum.  On  the  walls  hung  the  divining-rod  by 

’The  works  of  Pennypacker,  Sachse,  Diffenderfer,  Brumbaugh 
and  others  touch  very  inadequately  upon  the  relation  of  these 
German  immigrants  to  the  Quaker  settlements. 


[51] 


WITCHCRAFT  AND  QUAKERISM 


which  might  be  discovered  precious  metals,  and 
subterranean  springs. ’ ' 1 

To  these  scientific  astrologers — for  they  were 
nothing  more  or  less — resorted  certain  highly  re¬ 
spected  English  Quakers,  who,  cut  off  from  the 
study  of  the  fine  arts,  theology,  and  the  more  liberal 
branches  of  learning,  allowed  their  minds  free 
course  in  those  scientific  studies  toward  which  the 
early  Pennsylvania  Quaker  seems  naturally  to  have 
tended — for  this  very  reason.  A  slight  admixture 
of  sorcery  no  doubt  seemed  to  their  minds  far  less 
dangerous  than  a  study  of  literature,  music  or  the 
classics;  indeed,  was  probably  regarded  as  a  part 
of  all  science.  Among  the  most  frequent  of  these 
visitors  was  the  Quaker  astronomer,  Daniel  Leeds, 
who,  for  some  years  before  the  arrival  of  Kelpius, 
and  his  co-religionists,  had  published  an  “ALLman- 
ack.”  The  earliest  specimens  of  this  curious  pub¬ 
lication  are  preserved  in  the  rooms  of  the  Pennsyl¬ 
vania  Historical  Society.  In  his  edition  of  1694, 
Leeds  naively  apologizes  thus  for  his  prognostica¬ 
tions  of  the  weather,  disarming  all  criticism  by  say¬ 
ing:^  ‘As  to  what  I  have  spoken  of  the  Weather 
is  in  general,  and  respects  all  Kingdoms  and  Courts 
(for  no  otherways  can  we  well  do).  Therefore, 
if  it  happen  not  to  be  such  Weather  in  this  particu- 

’Dr.  Sachse.  “The  Pietists  of  Provincial  Pennsylvania.”  p.  85. 

[52] 


<*  4*  * 

*.  .* 

c-. . :  txv  tsa. 


'4* 

f  J.’J 


A 


T 


.  ,■*  &j  >.  ,  ,-»,  ,•»  .■»,  <*.  .4 .  £r. 

-  cS£ .  mU  iZ-: '  •  x.-  o*v  tv  fci.  C3:  cui  t-* 

.4  N 


■jf.  ,0  i>,  ,-fl 

& 


ANACK* 


t- 

C&5» 


a& 

t**d 


.4*, 


•&. 


•t- 


CM* 

vtr 


For  the  Yaar  ot  Chriitiaa  Account 

*  ^9  4** 

Aid  from  the  Creation  of  the  World 

5  ■  >  6  *  •  t# 

But  by  KtpLti  Computation  $587.  •' 

Being  the  ieeonci  after  Leap-Year,  «&■ 
The  £;  ad  is  14.  Golden  Number  4*  ^ 

a  id  Dominical  Letter  C.  *£; 

^  Containing  Matters  NecdTary  and  g? 
Lieful,  chiefly  accomodated  to  the 
Lit.  of  49  degrees,  hive  may  without  g\ 
fenUb’e  Error  Drve  the  Places  adj  icem*  *§;, 
from  Newjotixd-Land  to  the  Capes  of 
Pjrj-iMU  ^ _ _ _  |a 

By  Daniel  Leeds ,  Philcmat.  lA 

_  uS 

•i* 

A  Motto,  taught  bv  the  Sons  of  "Vnna.  >A 

jf  ic  hi  born  ur  >Jr  Mercury  difpofetb  us  to  Wffji,  t'A 
«?,‘i  Jupiter1  10  fie  W-ahhy,  we  do  net  ovte  4; 

Thanks  unto  them,  bur  unto  thtr  Merciful  Hand  A 
*/;at  ordered  our  indifferent  (J  uncertain  Nativities  ,  o' 
unto  fitch  benevolent  Atyeiti.  %& 


tv, 

-'A 


44b, 

c-Aj 


(T, 

y-.-> 

.Si., 


,V,  Printed  and  Sold  by  Wikiato  Brsdf(-'d  at  % 
th:  Bible  in  IVew-rorD,  1^94. 

1^-;^ 


V43 

4*V 


A.  ,4*.  .  2*.  «,  A  A  ^ 

•  c*ai  G&  uo  caw  6tA3  cD '  .* 


4*.  ; 


Title  page  of  Daniel  Leeds’  Almanac  for  1694. 
Original  owned  by  Historical  Society  of  Pennsylvania. 


k* 


- 


DANIEL  LEEDS’  ALMANAC 


lar  of  Ground,  and  yet  be  such  in  General,  I  hope 
you  will  not  blame  me  for  being  so  universally 
minded.’  ”  Leeds,  a  prominent  Quaker  colonist  in 
the  early  days,  quarrelled  with  Friends  in  1688 
about  his  almanac,  and  left  the  society.  He  had 
all  along  been  a  sympathizer  with  Keith,  and  joined 
that  leader  when  his  controversy  became  conspicu¬ 
ous.  The  theosophical  and  occult  philosophy  that 
found  expression  in  this  almanac  was  doubtless 
a  direct  result  of  his  intercourse  with  the  German 
mystics  of  the  Wissahickon,  and  the  cause  that  led 
to  his  expulsion  from  the  Quakers  who  were  Ortho¬ 
dox.  Among  these  was  his  opponent,  Francis 
Daniel  Pastorius,  who,  although  a  German  immi¬ 
grant  himself,  had  no  sympathy  with  the  mystics 
or  Roscicrucians.  His  name  is  to  be  found  fre¬ 
quently  upon  the  books  of  Philadelphia  Monthly 
Meeting,  although  he  was  never  an  actual  mem¬ 
ber,  and  was  buried  after  the  rites  of  his  early  faith. 

The  case  of  the  Rev.  Joseph  Morgan,  of  the 
“Old  Scots”  Church  at  Freehold,  New  Jersey,  about 
the  same  time,  is  interesting  in  this  connection. 
The  neighborhood  was  that  from  which  George 
Keith  came,  and  while  there  is  no  evidence  of  any 
relations  between  the  two,  they  were  both  of  that 
type  of  unusually  scientific  and  well  educated  men, 
whose  investigations  tended,  like  the  Germantown 


[53] 


WITCHCRAFT  AND  QUAKERISM 


philosophers,  to  surprise  and  confound  their  un¬ 
learned  neighbors,  who  had  no  other  explanation 
for  the  products  of  scientific  discovery  than  that 
they  were  aided  by  the  Evil  One  himself.  Mr.  Mor¬ 
gan  was  of  an  inventive  turn  of  mind,  which,  in  the 
early  days  of  his  ministry,  caused  a  charge  against 
him  of  astrological  practices.  This  was  renewed 
when  (1712-1714)  he  produced  a  sort  of  prophecy 
of  the  steamboat,  as  a  result  of  his  interest  in  the 
study  of  navigation.  He  was  born  in  Connecticut, 
in  1674,  and  confessed  to  Cotton  Mather,  “I  have 
no  leisure  for  reading  or  writing  discourses  for  the 
church,  and  often  know  not  my  text  before  the 
Sabbath.”  To  the  Puritans  at  this  period,  extem¬ 
pore  speaking  was  in  itself  heretical.  The  Phila¬ 
delphia  Synod,  in  dismissing  Mr.  Morgan,  who 
sympathized  with  Jonathan  Dickinson  in  dissent 
from  the  supremacy  of  that  body,  said,  “We  can¬ 
not  find  Mr.  Morgan  clear  from  imprudence  aAd 
misconduct  in  making  the  two  alleged  experiments 
of  that  kind,  if  the  reports  be  true,  were  his  ends 
never  so  good  and  laudable!”  What  the  “two  al¬ 
leged  experiments”  were,  we  are  unfortunately  not 
informed. 

The  irrepressible  Benjamin  Franklin  made  use 
of  the  still-existent  witchcraft  idea  to  mystify  his 
readers  of  the  Pennsylvania  Gazette  in  the  issue 


[54] 


1 1  Month,  Zifj  Dripping  April. 


j  ^  And  dripping,  more  or  lets,  it  does  remain, 
i  n’er  fince  (toxaufe  Noth' s  Elgod^  itfirftdid  rain» 
Before  which  time  the  Earth  ffo  Mofes  fays> 

Was  watered  by  a  Mill,  no  other  ways: 

The  Rain-how  alfo  proves  it  unto  me, 

Hv  without  Clouds  no  Rain-bow  coal'd  there  be. 


4 

6 

7 

8 

9 

To 

U 

12 

f 

14 


OiPahn  Branches.  |tn  i 

2  Day  13  h.  4  min*  '  tu  2 

3  |  c/Q  ?  fine  growing  f  3 
4 'weather.  D  a  little:  ?  3 
5  ealcward  of  B.  |vp  4 
o  One  ill,  weed  marrsawy  f 
7  rohol  pot  of  pottage.1  zs  6 
O  EASTh'd-Day.  \xz.6 
2- Day  13  b.  30  min,  |x|7 
3  T  not  windy,  then  X  8 


Sun  rife  at  <>  29 
Sets  at  631 


36 
2r 
OS 

S4 

40 

26 1  _  ' 

'  It  Laft  Quarter 

^7:the  6  day. 


4  □  <?  ©  warm  andjT 

5  A  T?  Ofoimhing  dry |  Y 

6  but  propable  ikhiQY 

7  ,  T  A?  +  begin  sto  rauijtf 
■  >  ;to"propagate  -the  tr 

Spring.  £3^  Lawjir 

is. 


4  7 1  3  iSt  Phyfick  undoes 
4  many  a  man. 
l9  5  ;Day  13  h.  3  quar. 

5  After  Rain 
7  ,it  will  be  fair  again 
T  js  draws  near  cor  Si 
2, probable  more  wet 
3  daft  Month  than  this 
'2,44!^*  Mxrh  Qft  5 
'iO  $  Heat  brcc&iTbuidir 
27-6  Meeting .- 


42 
27 
12 

58,  4,111  rife, at  =5  tg 

10  43  Sets  at  6  42' 

11  28 

l4  New  9  the  13 

02  day  at  <  morn* 

' 

o<ii  t 
>°1  . 

26 


-8  7  1  Day  14  hours*  , , 

2901 A  time  of  -plea;  ant  tn  .*  1  43 
j  30,2  l>fco#fair wea t ‘ ier\ 4  12  33 


Sun  rife  at  3  7 
3  Sets  at  633 


13 

431 


up  7  33  Tirft  Quar.  22 
23  day 


V 

-9  13 

its  10  03 
Wit  ID 


full  7)  29  cjy 

3  .it  y  morn. 


Specimen  page  of  Daniel  Leeds’  Almanac  for  1694. 
Original  owned  by  Historical  Society  of  Pennsylvania. 


BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN’S  SQUIB 

of  October  22,  1730,  by  writing  an  account  of  a 
supposed  witchcraft  trial  near  Mount  Holly,  New 
Jersey — an  account  which  has  been  solemnly  quoted 
by  various  subsequent  historians.  In  Franklin’s 
usual  plausible  fashion  was  described  the  trial  of 
a  man  and  a  woman  accused  of  making  sheep  dance, 
hogs  sing  or  speak,  etc.  The  accused,  in  the  pres¬ 
ence  of  the  Governor,  were  weighed  against  the 
Bible,  “and  their  lumps  of  mortality  were  sever¬ 
ally  too  heavy  for  Moses  and  all  the  Prophets  and 
Apostles !”  This  not  being  satisfactory,  trial  by 
water  was  resorted  to.  When  the  accused  swam, 
there  was  a  diversity  of  opinion,  the  accused  them¬ 
selves  wondering  why  they  did  not  sink!  This  ac¬ 
count  was  received  in  London  with  solemnity,  and 
published  in  the  Gentleman’s  Magazine,  for  Janu¬ 
ary,  1731  (Vol.  I,  29),  while  Dr.  Franklin  was  all 
the  time  laughing  in  his  sleeve  at  the  success  of 
his  joke.  This  picturesque  incident  is  elsewhere 
described  as  occurring  about  “skie-setting.”  Frank¬ 
lin  purposely  placed  the  affair  in  the  heart  of  a 
thickly  settled  Quaker  community.1 

The  same  Quakers  at  Burlington  had  had  in  cir¬ 
culation  among  themselves  the  following  petition, 
which  was  by  no  means  an  unusual  thing.  This 

’The  text  of  this  squib  is  quoted  in  full  in  the  edition  of  the 
“Life  and  Works”  of  Benjamin  Franklin  by  Albert  H.  Smyth. 
Vol.  II,  170. 


[55] 


WITCHCRAFT  AND  QUAKERISM 


copy  is  made  from  the  original  paper,  which  is 
known  to  be  of  an  earlier  date  than  1730: 

“Please  your  Worships,  gentlemen.  Pray  doe 
have  some  Charety  for  me,  a  poor  Distrest  man  that 
is  become  old  and  scars  able  to  Mentain  my  Famely 
at  the  best,  and  now  sum  Peopel  has  raised  a  Re- 
porte  that  my  Wife  is  a  Witch,  by  which  I  and 
my  famely  must  sartinly  suffer  if  she  cant  be  clear’d 
of  the  thing  and  a  Stop  Poot  to  the  Reporte  for 
Peopel  will  not  have  no  Delings  with  me  on  the 
acount  Pray  Gentlemen  I  beg  the  favor  of  you  that 
one  or  more  of  you  would  free  her  for  she  is  De¬ 
sirous  that  she  may  be  tried  by  all  Maner  of  Ways 
that  ever  a  Woman  was  tried  so  that  she  can  get 
Cleare  of  the  Report  from  your  poor  and  Humble 
Servant,  Jeames  Moore.” 

At  the  same  town,  there  is  still  standing  the 
“witch  tree,”  which  may  have  been  that  referred 
to  in  London1 :  “A  tree  observed  at  Burlington,  in 
New  Jersey,  which  had  been  split  and  the  parts 
rejoined,  was  believed  to  have  been  used  for  the 
purpose  of  curing  disease.  This  was  done  by  pass¬ 
ing  the  person  afflicted  (usually  a  child)  through 
the  cleft,  whereby  the  disease  was  lost  in  trans¬ 
mission,  departing  with  the  renewed  growth  of  the 

1Notes  and  Queries.  London.  6th  series.  Vol.  I,  p.  io. 


[56] 


SCIENCE  AND  SUPERSTITION 


tree.  It  was  necessary  that  the  child’s  body  touch 
the  inner  surface  to  transfer  the  disease  direct.” 

White,  in  his  “Natural  History  of  Selborne,” 
describes  minutely  the  removal  of  several  such  trees 
from  his  own  garden,  in  1776.  The  idea  of  hu¬ 
man  life  bound  up  in  that  of  a  tree  will  occur  to 
every  one  who  has  seen  the  Caernarvon  Yew.  That 
the  horned  cattle  uttered  prayers  upon  their  knees 
at  midnight  on  Christmas  Eve,  was  believed  very 
generally  so  late  as  1850.  The  churn  was  often 
said  to  be  “bewitched”  when  the  butter  would  not 
“come,”  and  many  an  one  would 

“Chase  evil  spirits  away  by  dint 
Of  sickle,  horse-shoe,  hollow  flint.”1 

To  the  present  day,  many  good  Friends  have 
their  little  pet  superstitions.  I  have  myself  been 
besought  by  a  Friend  of  long  Quaker  lineage  not 
to  move  into  a  new  house  on  “Sixth-day”  (Fri¬ 
day).  The  same  good  lady  carried  a  horse-chest¬ 
nut  in  her  pocket  for  years,  to  cure  her  rheumatism. 
In  the  early  eighteenth  century,  there  was  a  great 
prejudice  against  beginning  any  transaction  on  Fri¬ 
day.  A  Friend  of  Wilmington,  Delaware,  intending 
to  build  a  brig,  determined  to  combat  the  superstition 
by  entering  into  all  his  contracts  on  that  day,  which 
he  did,  even  naming  his  vessel  the  “Friday.”  They 

‘Hudibras.  II  Canto,  III. 


[57] 


WITCHCRAFT  AND  QUAKERISM 


began  to  load  her  on  that  day,  although  the  sailors 
had  to  be  bribed  from  that  time  until  they  set  sail. 
On  that  unlucky  day,  a  week  later  “in  the  midst 
of  a  most  awful  gale,  the  crew  of  a  homeward- 
bound  vessel  saw  this  brig,  with  her  men  cutting 
away  the  masts.”  “From  that  hour,  neither  brig 
nor  crew  was  ever  heard  of,  and  as  there  was  no 
insurance,  there  was  great  loss,”  The  wife  had  op¬ 
posed  the  design  of  her  husband  from  the  first, 
and  when  the  loss  of  the  brig  was  certain,  she 
walked  the  floor  in  despair,  saying,  “Isaac,  this  is 
all  thy  Sixth-day’s  doing.  I  warned  thee  of  the 
consequences  l”1 

The  early  objection  of  Quakerism  to  the  use  of 
the  “Heathen”  days  of  the  month  and  week  is  well 
known.  Yet  the  Moral  Almanac ,  an  ancient  and 
much  respected  official  publication  of  Philadelphia 
Quakerism,  uses  to-day  the  old  astrological  signs 
for  the  aspect  and  names  of  the  heavenly  bodies, 
and  prefers  the  Dominical  letter  of  the  Roman 
Church  to  the  numeral,  to  signify  the  first  day  of 
the  week. 

An  old  writer  on  witchcraft  says  that  a  person 
meeting  with  a  mischance  will  do  well  to  con¬ 
sider  whether  he  put  not  on  his  shirt  wrong  side 
outwards,  or  his  left  shoe  on  his  right  foot.  The 

''■The  Era  for  May,  1901. 


[58] 


WOMEN  AND  WITCHCRAFT 


petticoat  was  usually  demanded  first  of  any  victim 
of  sorcery,  this  garment  seeming  to  possess  great 
efficacy.  The  good  old  Chester  County  Quaker 
farmer  to-day  has  a  horse-shoe  nailed  to  his  barn 
door,  although  he  could  not  tell  exactly  why,  and 
plants  his  crops  according  to  the  condition  of  the 
moon,  with  rather  more  certainty  in  his  own  mind 
that  this  custom,  at  least,  must  have  some  scien¬ 
tific  foundation!  Within  the  past  two  years  I  have 
known  a  Friend  in  New  Jersey  who  used  the  ser¬ 
vices  of  a  neighbor  and  her  staff  to  locate  the  posi¬ 
tion  of  a  future  well. 

Women  were  reckoned  the  chief  witches  in  the 
early  days,  because  to  them  the  practice  of  domes¬ 
tic  medicine  was  principally  confined.  The  “wise 
woman,”  understanding  the  use  of  herbs  and  a 
simple  sort  of  botany,  having  more  insight  and 
more  brains  than  her  ignorant  neighbors,  wrought 
what  seemed  miracles  to  them,  by  simple  means, 
to-day  well  understood.  Witchcraft,  as  we  under¬ 
stand  it,  was  unknown  in  England  before  the  twelfth 
century?  “Women,”  said.  The  olcLPuritansr  “were  V- 
created  for  the  trial  and  temptation  of  man !” 

Bishop  Grandisson’s  Register  for  1348  mentions 
many  complaints  against  one  Margery  Kytel,  who 
“exercised  magic  arts  and  was  a  witch.”  She  re¬ 
fused  to  appear  when  he  cited  her,  and  he  there- 


[59] 


WITCHCRAFT  AND  QUAKERISM 


fore  pronounced  against  her,  from  the  parish  pul¬ 
pit,  the  Major  Excommunication.1 

The  Commissary  who  examined  Joan  of  Arc, 
said  to  her,  “Did  your  godmother,  who  saw  the 
fairies,  pass  as  a  Wise  Woman?”  Joan  answered, 
“She  was  held  and  considered  a  good  and  honest 
woman,  neither  divineress  nor  sorceress.”2  In 
1599,  James  the  First’s  “Daemonology”  has  the  fol¬ 
lowing  dialogue  between  Philomathes  and  Episte- 
mon : 

Phi.  “What  can  be  the  cause  that  there  are  twen- 
tie  women  given  to  that  craft”  (  ic.,  sorcery)  “where 
there  is  one  man?” 

Epis.  “The  reason  is  easie,  for  as  that  sexe  is 
frailer  than  man  is,  so  is  it  easier  to  be  entrapped 
in  those  grosse  snares  of  the  divell  as  was  overwel 
proved  to  be  trew  by  the  serpent’s  deceiving  of 
Eva  at  the  beginning,  which  makes  him  the  home¬ 
lier  with  that  sexe  sensine!”3 

Little  superstitions  connected  with  the  practice  of 
medicine  among  the  people  were  often  employed 
without  the  smallest  notion  of  their  origin.  Van 
Plelmont’s  system  of  medicine  was  a  book  familiar 
to  the  educated  Quakers,  the  author  only  having 

3F.  A.  Gasquet.  “Parish  Life  in  Mediaeval  England,”  p.  230. 

2T.  Douglass  Murray.  “Jeanne  d’Arc,  Maid  of  Orleans,”  etc  , 
p.  87. 

3R.  S.  Rait.  “A  Royal  Rhetorician.”  XXIII. 


[60] 


GEORGE  FOX  ON  MEDICINE 


died  in  1664.  Indeed,  so  impressed  was  George 
Fox  himself  with  the  value  of  medicine,  that  he 
seriously  thought,  when  a  young  man,  of  taking 
up  the  profession.  He  tells  us  “the  virtues  of  the 
creatures  were  also  opened  to  me,  so  that  I  began  to 
deliberate  whether  I  should  practice  physic  for 
the  good  of  mankind.” 


VI. 


UITE  the  most  striking  connection  of 
mediaeval  thought  with  the  Quakerism 
of  to-day,  however,  is  to  be  found  in  the 
recent  Life  of  Whittier,  by  Colonel  T. 
W.  Higginson.1  It  is  important  that  at¬ 
tention  should  be  drawn  to  a  misstatement  which  un¬ 
intentionally  does  gross  injustice  to  a  woman  of 
quite  another  temperament.  We  are  told  that  in 
speaking  of  the  poet  Rosetti  and  his  extraordinary 
ballad  of  “Sister  Helen,’’  Whittier  confessed  him¬ 
self  strongly  attracted  to  it  because  he  could  re¬ 
member  seeing  his  mother,  “who  was  as  good  a 
woman  as  ever  breathed,’’  with  his  aunt,  perform¬ 
ing  the  strange  act  on  which  the  ballad  turns,  and 
melting  the  waxen  figure  of  a  clergyman  of  their 
time,  that  its  soul  might  go  to  its  doom  in  Hell ! 
Colonel  Higginson  says,  “The  solemnity  of  the  af- 

1T.  W.  Higginson.  “John  Greenleaf  Whittier.”  English  Men 
of  Letters  Series. 


[62] 


WHITTIER  AND  SUPERSTITION 


fair  made  a  deep  impression  on  Whittier’s  mind 
as  a  child,  for  the  death  of  the  clergyman  in  ques¬ 
tion  was  confidently  expected.-  His  ‘heresies’  had 
led  him  to  experience  this  cabalistic  treatment.” 

The  aim  of  the  mystic  ceremony  was  to  destroy 
the  soul  of  the  person  (usually  a  passing  invalid), 
and  it  seems  almost  incredible  that  any  sight  or 
memory  of  human  suffering  should  have  called 
forth  such  a  spirit  of  revenge  in  those  seemingly 
gentle  natures.  Whittier’s  mother  was  “a  beauti¬ 
ful  and  godly  woman,  full  of  a  saintly  peace  and 
an  overflowing  human  kindness  which  made  her  a 
very  type  of  her  religion,”  and  the  performance 
of  even  such  vicarious  cruelty  as  is  here  described 
would  seem  a  moral  impossibility.  If  the  scene 
were  true,  we  should  have,  in  a  New  England 
Quaker  family,  less  than  one  hundred  years  ago,  a 
scene  worthy  of  the  middle  ages.  Colonel  Higgin- 
son  is  quoting  from  Mrs.  Fields.1  But  no  reference 
is  made  to  the  incident  in  the  latest  and  ablest  biog¬ 
raphy  of  the  Quaker  poet,  whose  author2  writes 
in  a  private  letter,  “Mrs.  Fields’  statement  on  page 
52  of  her  little  book  entitled  “Whittier,”  with  ref¬ 
erence  to  the  strangely  superstitious  practice  of 
Whittier’s  mother  and  aunt,  is  in  all  probability 

‘Mrs.  James  T.  Fields.  “Whittier.”  p.  52. 

’Professor  George  R.  Carpenter.  “John  Greenleaf  Whittier.” 
American  Men  of  Letters  Series. 


[63] 


WITCHCRAFT  AND  QUAKERISM 


based  upon  Mrs.  Fields’  faulty  memory.  I  talked 
about  the  matter  both  with  Mr.  Pickard,  who  mar¬ 
ried  Whittier’s  niece,  and  with  Whittier’s  three 
cousins  at  Oak  Knoll,  one  of  whom  is  a  woman 
of  seventy  or  so,  and  knew  Whittier’s  mother  and 
aunt.  Both  Mr.  Pickard  and  the  cousins  feel  per¬ 
fectly  sure  that  it  is  a  mistake.” 

No  one  who  has  read  the  close  of  Rosetti’s  song 
can  ever  forget  it : 

“See,  see  the  wax  has  dropped  from  its  place, 

Sister  Helen, 

And  the  waves  are  winning  up  apace !” 

“Yet  here  they  burn  but  for  a  space, 

Little  Brother, 

(O,  Mother,  Mary,  Mother), 

Here  for  a  space,  between  Hell  and  Heaven.” 

“Ah!  What  is  this  that  sighs  in  the  frost?” 

“A  soul  that’s  lost  as  mine  is  lost. 

Little  Brother!” 

(O,  Mother,  Mary,  Mother, 

Lost,  lost,  all  lost  between  Hell  and  Heaven!) 


[64] 


WHITTIER  AND  SUPERSTITION 


Whittier’s  poetic  imagination  bore  testimony  to 
his  inheritance  of  an  emotional  sensitiveness  which 
training  and  experience  developed  into  the  great¬ 
est  gift  to  the  human  mind — that  of  the  poet.  It 
is  quite  possible  that  this  mother  may  have  ex¬ 
plained  to  her  son,  as  a  child,  the  practices  in¬ 
dulged  in  by  some  of  the  dwellers  in  that  neigh¬ 
borhood  in  the  sterner  Puritan  days,  when  we 
know  that  such  things  were  far  from  uncommon. 
The  impression  would  naturally  be  strong  on  a  sens¬ 
itive  nature.  Whittier  seems  to  have  been  able 
to  enter  very  fully  into  the  feeling  of  the  days  of 
superstition  in  New  England,  as  the  tinge  of  a 
mysterious  spell  or  incantation  is  over  more  than 
one  of  his  poems,  and  there  is  much  in  the  sym¬ 
pathy  and  understanding  with  which  he  wrote,  “The 
Witch’s  Daughter,  or  Mabel  Martin,”  first  pub¬ 
lished  in  The  National  Era,  in  1857.  His  “Spir¬ 
itualism  in  New  England”  is  another  evidence. 

For  our  ancestors,  dreams,  hallucinations,  reve¬ 
lations  and  all  sorts  of  incredible  experiences,  were 
inextricably  mixed  up  with  facts.  “Impressions” 
to-day  have  a  scientific  explanation.  The  old 
Quaker  historian,  Sewel,1  tells  us  that  in  1702, 
Galenius  Abrahams  asserted  that  “nobody”  at  that 
day  “could  be  accepted  as  a  messenger  of  God  un- 

'Sewel’s  “History  of  the  Quakers.’’  Vol.  II,  366,  368. 

[65] 


WITCHCRAFT  AND  QUAKERISM 


less  he  confirmed  his  doctrine  by  miracles.”  Hence, 
with  the  early  Friends,  visions  and  apparitions  by 
night  form  a  large  element  in  the  convincement 
and  experience  of  many  of  them.  Beginning  with 
Fox  and  continuing  with  Story,  Bownas,  Hoag, 
Savery,  Woolman,  Hunt,  Grellet,  there  is  a  really 
extraordinary  list  of  these  relations.  At  the  time  of 
their  occurrence  they  were  devoutly  believed  by  the 
subject  to  be  of  divine  origin.  Perhaps  it  will  not  do 
even  yet  to  relegate  them  to  the  patholdgical  posi¬ 
tion  where,  doubtless,  most  of  them  belong,  for  it 
is  matter  of  history  that  they  accomplished  a  not¬ 
able  object  in  the  impressions  made  upon  the  minds 
of  the  people.  Some  of  them  were  of  a  prophetic 
character,  while  others  were  subjective,  like  one  of 
Woolman.  He  is  careful  to  tell  us  that  he  was 
not  ill  at  the  time.  “Thirteenth  fifth  month,  1757. 
Being  in  good  health  and  abroad  with  Friends 
visiting  families,  I  lodged  at  a  Friend’s  house  in 
Burlington.  Going  to  bed  about  the  usual  time  with 
me,  I  awoke  in  the  night,  and  my  meditations,  as 
I  lay,  were  on  the  goodness  and  mercy  of  the  Lord, 
in  a  sense  whereof  my  heart  was  contrited.  After 
this  I  went  to  sleep  again;  in  a  short  time  I  awoke; 
it  was  yet  dark  and  no  appearance  of  day  or  moon¬ 
shine;  and  as  I  opened  my  eyes  I  saw  a  light  in 
mv  chamber,  at  the  distance  of  five  feet,  about  nine 


[66] 


VISION  OF  JOHN  WOOLMAN 


inches  in  diameter,  of  a  clear  easy  brightness,  and 
near  its  centre  the  most  radiant.  As  I  lay  still, 
looking  upon  it  without  any  suprise,  words  were 
spoken  to  my  inward  ear  which  filled  my  whole  in¬ 
ward  man.  They  were  not  the  effect  of  thought, 
nor  any  conclusion  in  relation  to  the  appearance, 
but  as  the  language  of  the  Holy  One  spoken  in  my 
mind.  The  words  were  Certain  Evidence  of  Divine 
Truth.  They  were  again  repeated  exactly  in  the 
same  manner,  and  then  the  light  disappeared.”1 

In  many  respects,  this  vision  and  its  narration 
are  the  most  remarkable  in  the  long  list.  It  pos¬ 
sesses  a  different  quality  from  any  of  those  even  of 
Fox;  and  while  there  is  an  earthly  or  physical  touch 
in  the  dreams  of  nearly  all  the  others,  this  of  John 
Woolman  would  seem  to  belong  upon  the  same 
plane  with  some  of  the  visions  of  the  saints  in  the 
Church  of  Rome,  and  is  another  point  of  resem¬ 
blance  between  Woolman  and  St.  Francis  of  Assisi. 

There  are  interesting  accounts  of  Eli  Yarnall,  a 
Quaker,  who  lived  in  the  neighborhood  of  Philadel¬ 
phia,  and  who,  as  a  child,  had  what  was  called  the 
gift  of  “second  sight,”  being  able  to  tell  the  loca¬ 
tion  of  things  that  were  lost,  to  see  the  approach 
of  one  yet  a  long  way  off,  and.  in  various  ways  to 
possess  occult  powers.  The  gift  did  not  remain 

’The  Journal  of  John  Woolman.  p.  98. 

[67] 


WITCHCRAFT  AND  QUAKERISM 


with  him  in  after  years,  but  his  youthful  services 
were  in  great  and  awe-struck  demand.  His  mother 
did  not  permit  him  to  “divine  for  money,”  lest  he 
should  thereby  lose  the  gift  which  she  deemed 
heaven-derived.  The  idea  was  not  new,  even  among 
the  Friends,  for  John  Woolman  speaks  of  a  case 
of  a  rare  gift  of  healing  lost  by  taking  a  reward.1 

No  real  survival  of  the  witchcraft  idea  can  be 
found  among  the  Quakers  to-day.  The  students 
of  folk-lore,  upon  whose  domain  we  have  tres¬ 
passed,  will  tell  us  of  recent  grave  crimes  among 
the  central  Pennsylvania  Germans,  due  to  linger¬ 
ing  superstition.  But  we  must  study  the  Quaker 
in  his  environment  to  understand  him  properly, 
and  must  give  him  infinite  credit  for  maintaining 
his  sturdy  common-sense  during  periods  when  all 
the  rest  of  the  world  seemed  to  have  taken  leave 
of  its  senses.  No  Quaker  has  ever  been  known  to 
write  a  treatise  in  favor  of  witchcraft,  although 
there  are  a  few  against  it.  A  Yorkshire  Quaker2 

JSee  Watson’s  “Annals  of  Philadelphia  and  Pennsylvania.” 
Vol.  I,  p.  273.  I.  Woodbridge  Riley,  in  “The  Founder  of  Mor- 
monism”  (p.  187)  describes  the  “seeing  stone”  used  by  Joseph 
Smith  the  younger,  in  1825.  It  was  “a  green  stone,  with  brown 
irregular  spots  in  it.  It  was  a  little  larger  than  a  goose’s  egg, 
and  about  the  same  thickness.”  It  was  covered  with  a  hat 
when  in  use. 

’Richard  Farnsworth,  of  Balby,  Yorkshire,  1655,  the  “witch¬ 
craft  year.” 


[68] 


FARNSWORTH’S  TRACT 


wrote  with  the  following  as  the  title  to  his  book, 
“Witchcraft  Cast  Out  From  the  Religious  Seed 
and  Israel  of  God,  and  the  Black  Art,  or  Necro¬ 
mancy,  Inchantments,  Sorcerers,  Wizards,  Lying 
Divination,  Conjuration  and  Witchcraft,  Discov¬ 
ered,”  etc.  “Written  in  Warwickshire  the  ninth 
month  1654,  as  a  Judgment  upon  Witchcraft  and 
a  denial,  testimony  and  declaration  against  Witch¬ 
craft,  from  those  that  the  world  reproachfully  called 
Quakers.” 

Indeed,  if  the  direct  power  of  the  Devil  was  to 
be  allowed  in  cases  of  witchcraft,  as  by  church  and 
state  it  was,  because  Scripture  assurance  could  be 
quoted  that  it  once  existed,  why  could  not  the 
Quaker  have  been  permitted  his  beautiful  faith  in 
the  immanence  of  that  divine  Spirit,  belief  in  which 
is  the  main  strength  of  his  creed?  It  was  a  strange 
inconsistency  of  the  human  race  that  two  hundred 
years  ago  gave  immunity  from  punishment  to  those 
who  exalted  the  reign  of  the  Devil,  and  persecuted 
the  only  people  that  preached  a  message  of  earthly, 
as  well  as  heavenly,  peace. 


[69] 


_  .  _  i  i^;>>Arcit\/ 1  ibraries 

D00921U »or 


133.4  G-974W 


313437 * 


